The document, which Kahn says he has seen, states that the IDF observed Hamas conducting a series of training sessions in which armed fighters were trained to attack Israeli military positions and civilian kibbutzim.
The Israeli army also knew that Hamas was training its units on how to capture hostages and how to guard them after they were returned to the Gaza Strip.
The IDF’s Southern Command and Gaza Division also wrote in the document, according to Kan, that they expected Hamas to take between 200 and 250 hostages. The officials even had information about how Hamas planned to treat hostages in some extreme circumstances and what rules Hamas had in place for executing hostages.
The Times of Israel reported that Israel wrongly believed Hamas would never be able to bypass its high-tech border security — an “iron wall” of concrete, tunnels and razor wire, equipped with remote-controlled machine guns, which had been installed two years before the attack.
Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking hundreds hostage, many of whom are still being held.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the exact number of hostages held by Hamas is unclear, but Israel estimated the number at about 240, with about 116 in Gaza.
