Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was presented with IDF intelligence reports detailing Hamas’s plans to invade Israel as early as April 2018, according to a Tuesday report citing intelligence documents and senior officials.

The report, published by the Ynet news site, said that between 2018 and 2022, Hamas developed a comprehensive operational blueprint for a coordinated, multifront attack against Israeli military bases and civilian communities in southern Israel. The attack plan, which was later put together in a document known as “Jericho’s Walls,” envisioned breaching the Gaza border at dozens of points and deploying thousands of fighters.

It was ultimately executed with deadly effect on October 7, 2023, when Hamas led a devastating invasion of southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, kidnapping 251 hostages, and sparking two years of war in Gaza.

According to the report, Netanyahu — who has served as prime minister since 2009, save for 18 months in 2021-2022 — was given intelligence about Hamas’s “Jericho’s Walls” plans several times over those years, despite his repeated public denials that he had ever seen or heard of such a plan before the October 7 attack.

The earliest known transfer of the plan to Israeli leadership, according to the report, occurred in April 2018, when the Military Intelligence Directorate’s Research Division distributed a special intelligence document to senior officials. Those officials included the military secretaries of the prime minister and defense minister, the National Security Council, the heads of the Shin Bet and Mossad, and the IDF chief of staff’s office.

According to the documents cited by Ynet, the 2018 report asked the following question in its subheading: “Is Hamas’s military wing building up its force for a broad attack deep into our territory?”

Ynet said the Prime Minister’s Office did not respond to requests for comment.

Ynet said the intelligence report warned that Hamas was developing “a plan for an initiated offensive maneuver with a broad order of [troops in] battle (six reserve battalions; approximately 3,000 fighters)” aimed at overrunning IDF bases while simultaneously attacking civilian targets “in the border communities and deep inside Israel.”

The 2018 report stressed the seriousness of the threat, emphasizing that “the scope of the plan and its complexity are exceptional.” While some analysts who contributed to the report expressed doubt that Hamas could actually carry out the plan in full, they cautioned that “the plan illustrates a new and broader threat scenario........

© The Times of Israel