Top Hamas military commander claims October 7 attacks were never meant to target Israeli civilians as he breaks ranks to criticise terror group’s exiled leaders ‘who changed the plan last-minute’ in extraordinary intervention
A top Hamas military commander has broken ranks to criticise the terror group’s leaders, claiming that its barbaric October 7 attacks were never supposed to target Israeli civilians.
In an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, the leader of a battalion of 400 Hamas terrorists claimed that the initial plan was to kill Israeli soldiers and take some troops hostage.
But he said that orders were changed at the last minute by Hamas political leaders exiled outside of Gaza which led to the savage rape, torture and murder of more than 1,400 children, women and men. Hundreds of Israelis were taken hostage back to Gaza.
‘I am one of the planners (of October 7) and we did not expect it to go this way,’ he said, speaking via the encrypted Telegram app last week.
‘Our leadership was speaking to our young ones saying go, do whatever you like, take whatever you like…You see and witness we have killed babies.
‘Us going there into civilian areas, taking 250 hostages, wasn’t planned. They are civilians. Our plan was to take a few [military] hostages in return for our prisoners.’
Children’s toys and personal items lie on the bloodstained floor of a child’s bedroom, following a deadly infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip, in Kibbutz Beeri
A woman flees after Hamas terrorists descended on the Supernova Festival in southern Israel and killed 260 people
The aftermath of an attack on the Supernova music Festival by Palestinian militants
A destroyed house in Be’eri Kibbutz, Israel which was attacked by Hamas on October 7
The commander, going by the code name Abu Mohammed, accused Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar of acting like a ‘street fighter’. He said the Hamas leadership that had ordered its terrorists to ‘do what they like’ are not living in Gaza and facing Israel’s retribution.
‘Our reason to speak is that we want to raise our voice to the world. My dear Gaza is under bombardment. The problem is because of our leadership.’
He claimed that Hamas military commanders in Gaza have been effectively cut off from the political leadership, and now rely on messengers like ‘ancient times.’
He said he only had some dates and olive oil to eat, unlike the group’s head, Ismail Haniyeh, and others, who live in splendour in Qatar and Turkey.
‘We don’t know what direction to go in next. We don’t know which path to take,’ he said, claiming that several other Hamas commanders were now questioning the leadership.
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‘They destroyed us.’
The barbaric October 7 attacks saw Hamas fire a barrage of rockets from Gaza and send fighters across the border, killing 1,400 people and taking about 240 hostages.
More than 270 bodies, mostly young people, were strewn across the site of a music festival in a Negev desert kibbutz after Hamas attackers used paragliders to cross the border and fire indiscriminately into the crowd.
At a nearby kibbutz in southern Israel, Hamas terrorists massacred at least 40 babies and young children, before beheading some of them and gunning down their families.
The onslaught saw around 70 Hamas fighters armed with machine guns and grenades storm the usually quiet Kfar Aza kibbutz in southern Israel killing men, women and children indiscriminately.
The terrorists went on a rampage, killing hundreds of Israelis and taking dozens hostage in places like Kfar Aza, near Sderot. Some of the houses had been almost totally destroyed in the attack with collapsed, burned walls.
The death toll dwarfs the scale of any past attack by Islamists apart from 9/11. Scores of Israelis were taken to Gaza as hostages, with some paraded through the streets.
A survivor of the Hamas festival massacre yesterday revealed how she had to hide under her boyfriend’s dead body in the back of a skip as terrorists crossed the Israel border and murdered innocent civilians.
Israeli model Noam Mazal Ben-David, 27, was forced to play dead for two hours surrounded by a pile of corpses after her partner David Neman and dozens of others were gunned down by Hamas terrorists in front of her eyes.
She was losing blood rapidly after being shot in the foot and hip but knew she had to remain silent to stay alive.
Noam and her boyfriend were among the terrified revellers who fled for their lives as they were chased by Hamas gunmen on foot at the festival while missiles rained down from the sky.
Noam Mazal Ben-David (with boyfriend), 27, was forced to play dead for two hours surrounded by a pile of corpses after her partner David Neman and dozens of others were gunned down by Hamas terrorists
Disturbing footage shows the moment that Noam was hiding in a skip while a massacre unfolded at the Supernova festival
An Israeli officer walks on the ground of the Super Nova Festival in Re’im, Israel, on Tuesday. Festivalgoers left their belongings and fled from Hamas terrorists
The weekend-long outdoor rave which was billed as a celebration of ‘friends, love and infinite freedom’ became an unimaginable bloodbath when Hamas terrorists descended on the Supernova Festival in southern Israel and killed 260 people.
The couple arrived for the festival at 6.30am on October 7 blissfully unaware that it would become a day in which Hamas would unleash terror on Israel, slaughtering 1,400 Israelis, many of whom were civilians.
Describing the moment she was told to run for her life by security as terrorists sprayed bullets across the festival, she told the Express: ‘They surrounded us and they just kept shooting, non-stop.
‘I heard one girl scream “Please don’t take me. Just leave me alone”. But they still kidnapped her. They did terrible, terrible things to her.’
Noam, who had been unable to flee in her car because terrorists blocked the exits, recalled how they were desperately calling family and friends, sharing their locations and begging for help.
She described how one of the revellers who was with them in the skip shouted that she had been seen by the gunmen.
‘As the Hamas gunmen approached, David took me and threw me to the back of the container telling me to get as deep as I could and to hide. One of them jumped inside and yelled “Allahu Akbar” and a bomb went off, and they started shooting non-stop,’ she said.
‘It was Russian roulette as to who would get a bullet.’
Noam heartbreakingly revealed how her boyfriend David was shot in the chest, while a girl lying on top of her was blasted in the shoulder.
It was at this moment that Noam closed her eyes and expected never to open them again. She miraculously survived despite being shot in the foot and the hip.
The ruthless terrorists had presumed that she was dead as she lay among the pile of bodies.
Noam called her family to tell them that David had been killed and admitted to them that she did not think she was going to make it.
This graphic shows how Hamas terrorists invaded the festival in southern Israel and massacred civilians
Student Noa Argamini, 25, was filmed screaming ‘don’t kill me’ as she was dragged away from the Nova festival by laughing Hamas gunmen
Israeli army soldiers search the remains of a torched vehicle for forensic evidence at the site of the October 7 attack on the Supernova desert music festival
A nursery in Kibbutz Be’eri shows signs of destruction and blood-shed
The artist was eventually found by the Israel Defence Forces who gave her life-saving aid. Noam was one of just four out of the 16 who hid in the skip that survived.
In the weeks after the festival massacre, grim footage showed how Hamas gunmen immediately opened fire on hundreds of terrified Israeli revellers who had to run for their lives.
Video taken from a terrorist’s truck shows the rampaging gunmen driving along a road, covered with the bodies of their already slain victims and their bullet-riddled cars, and unleashing more horrors that defy belief.
It was here that the gunmen, drawn to the sound of crackling gunfire up ahead, saw hundreds of screaming youngsters running across the next field from the festival where they had seen their friends shot dead by Hamas terrorists.
Without hesitation, two gunmen raised their assault rifles and began firing shots one after the other at the fleeing revellers. Within seconds, dozens of other terrorists jumped out of their pickup trucks and began taking potshots too.
READ MORE: Dramatic videos reveal intense battles raging between Israel and Hamas in war-torn Gaza with soldiers ambushed by terrorists armed with grenades emerging from tunnels
Some fired from a machine gun-mounted truck, while one gunman jumped onto the bonnet of a slain victim’s abandoned car to shoot over the trees at the screaming revellers, mowing them down one by one with their hail of bullets.
The sickening sound of gunshots continued for 40 seconds – the terrorists unrelenting in their savagery. Apparently deciding that there were no more victims to shoot, the gunmen are seen turning back to their trucks before the video cuts out.
The terrorists also published harrowing videos showing the gunmen dragging screaming mothers and their young children towards waiting trucks before driving them away from their neighbourhoods.
Among the videos was one that showed student Noa Argamini, 25, screaming ‘don’t kill me’ as she was dragged away from the Nova festival by laughing Hamas gunmen. Her whereabouts is unknown.
For over six hours, thousands of festivalgoers hid without help from the Israeli army as Hamas militants sprayed automatic gunfire and threw grenades.
Another tragic victim of the festival was Shani Louk who was abducted by Hamas terrorists at the Nova electronic festival and paraded on the back of a truck.
For more than three weeks, Ms Louk’s family prayed that the German-Israeli could be saved from the terrorists.
But Ms Louk’s mother and sister announced that she was dead last week after a bone from the base of her skull was found.
Harrowing images from the aftermath of the festival showed abandoned vehicles and tents of revellers who had travelled from far and wide to dance in the desert.
Since Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel, killing 1,400 people and taking about 240 hostages, Israel has retaliated by bombarding Gaza relentlessly.
Tel Aviv’s retaliation, which has included a ground incursion into the territory, has killed more than 9,000 people, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.
The growing death toll since Hamas’s deadly raids on October 7 has sparked a host of protests in the UK, with thousands of pro-Palestinian supporters taking to the streets of London, Glasgow and Belfast on Saturday to demand a ceasefire.
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