Colour-coded maps, a detailed plan show Hamas knew Israeli secrets, weaknesses

After crossing into Israel, they headed east on five motorcycles, two gunmen on each vehicle, shooting at passing civilian cars as they pressed forward.

Ten miles later, they veered off the road into a stretch of woodland, dismounting outside an unmanned gate to a military base. They blew open the barrier with a small explosive charge, entered the base and paused to take a group selfie. Then they shot dead an unarmed Israeli soldier dressed in a T-shirt.

For a moment, the attackers appeared uncertain about where to go next. Then one of them pulled something from his pocket: a colour-coded map of the complex.

Reoriented, they found an unlocked door to a fortified building. Once inside, they entered a room filled with computers — the military intelligence hub. Under a bed in the room, they found two soldiers taking shelter.

An Israeli woman is welcomed upon her return at the Tel Aviv airport on Sunday. (Express photo by Shubhajit Roy)

The gunmen shot both dead.

This sequence was captured on a camera mounted on the head of a gunman who was later killed. The New York Times reviewed the footage, then verified the events by interviewing Israeli officials and checking Israeli military video of the attack.

They provide chilling details of how Hamas, the militia that controls the Gaza Strip, managed to surprise and outmaneuver the most powerful military in the Middle East last Saturday — storming across the border, overrunning more than 30 square miles, taking more than 150 hostages and killing more than 1,300 people in the deadliest day for Israel in its 75-year history.

With meticulous planning and extraordinary awareness of Israel’s secrets and weaknesses, Hamas and its allies overwhelmed the length of Israel’s front with Gaza shortly after dawn, shocking a nation that has long taken the superiority of its military as an article of faith.

Hamas planning documents, videos of the assault and interviews with security officials show that the group had a surprisingly sophisticated understanding of how the Israeli military operated, where it stationed specific units, and even the time it would take for reinforcements to arrive.

The Israeli military says that, once the war is over, it will investigate how Hamas managed to breach its defenses so easily.

‘Hamas in the Kibbutz!’

The terrorists were inside Addi Cherry’s home, on the other side of an unlocked door.

Cherry, her husband and their three children were hiding inside their eldest son’s bedroom, listening to the gunmen wander around their living room. “Please help us,” Cherry texted a friend as one of the assailants walked closer and closer to the bedroom door.

Then he gripped the door handle.

The Cherry family’s day had begun with a burst of rockets from Gaza, not long after 6 am.

Cherry, an economist, and her husband, Oren, an engineer, rushed with their children into their eldest son’s bedroom, which doubled as a bomb shelter.

Initially, the events of the morning felt distressingly familiar. The Cherry family lives in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, a rural village of some 500 residents in Israel, a few hundred yards east of the border with Gaza. Early morning rocket fire — and the ensuing rush to the safe room — is a frequent feature of life in the region.

“Like always,” Addi Cherry remembered thinking.

But this morning soon felt different. The rockets kept coming, many of them headed deep into Israeli territory. Then, from the fields around the village, came the sound of gunshots.

Oren Cherry left the bedroom and peeked through the shutters on their living room windows. “Oh, God,” Addi Cherry remembered her husband shouting. “Hamas in the kibbutz! Hamas in the kibbutz!” It was 7.20 am.

Hundreds of Hamas invaders, carrying guns and shoulder-borne rocket launchers and wearing the group’s green headband, were streaming through the village fields.

It was part of a coordinated assault that, documents and video show, assigned squads of assailants to precise targets. As some swept through military bases, others charged into residential areas, ruthlessly kidnapping and killing civilians. They would reach the Cherrys’ street within minutes.

The family had to act quickly. Their bomb shelter — a teenager’s bedroom — had no lock. The parents grabbed a chair and wedged it under the door handle — making it harder to open. They dragged a small cabinet and pressed it against the chair. Then they waited. There was an army base next to the village. Its troops would be here within minutes, Addi Cherry remembered thinking.

What she didn’t know was that many of them were already dead.

All along the border, the Hamas gunmen had already overrun most, if not all, of the Israeli border bases. Footage from the attackers’ head-mounted cameras, including the video of the raid on the intelligence hub, showed Hamas gunmen — from its highly trained Nukhba brigade — smashing through the barricades of several bases in the first light of the morning.

After breaching, they were merciless, gunning down some soldiers in their beds and underwear. In several bases, they knew exactly where the communications servers were and destroyed them, according to a senior Israeli army officer.

With much of their communications and surveillance systems down, the Israelis often couldn’t see the commandos coming. They found it harder to call for help and mount a response. In many cases, they were unable to protect themselves, let alone the surrounding civilian villages.

A Hamas planning document — found by Israeli emergency responders in one village — showed that the attackers were organised into well-defined units with clear goals and battle plans.

One platoon had designated navigators, saboteurs and drivers — as well as mortar units in the rear to provide cover for the attackers, the document shows.

The group had a specific target — a kibbutz — and the attackers were tasked with storming the village from specific angles. They had estimates for how many Israeli troops were stationed in nearby posts, how many vehicles they had at their disposal and how long it would take those Israeli relief forces to reach them.

The document is dated October 2022, suggesting that the attack had been planned for at least a year.

Elsewhere, other assailants were posted to key road junctions to ambush Israeli reinforcements, according to four senior officers and officials. Some units had specific instructions to capture Israelis for use as bargaining chips in future prisoner exchanges with Israel. “Take soldiers and civilians as prisoners and hostages to negotiate with,” the document said.

The terrorists smashed their way into the Cherrys’ house shortly before 10 am, according to texts that Addi Cherry sent friends at the time.

At the Cherrys’ house, they forced in the door. Then they charged in, shouting and ransacking the house, Addi Cherry said. The family waited in terrified silence, hoping the intruders would ignore the door to the bedroom and assume everyone was away.

Addi Cherry and her husband put all their weight against the cabinet, to brace the chair underneath the door handle. Guy, 15, their eldest son, stood next to the door, holding an 18-pound dumbbell. Then the handle twitched. The parents began to push the cabinet. The handle continued to rattle.

Then it stopped. The assailant walked away.