‘Only a handful knew about zero hour’: Senior Hamas member on Israel-Palestine war

Only a handful of top commanders inside Gaza knew about the incursion launched into Israel, a senior Hamas official said on Monday. He also said that allies like Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah will join the battle if Gaza is subjected to a war of annihilation.

Member of Hamas’ exiled leadership, Ali Barakeh, told The Associated Press that Saturday’s attack caught Israel’s military and intelligence services completely off guard. The attack, he revealed, was planned by around half a dozen top Hamas commanders in Gaza. The group’s closest allies too did not have any information in advance about the timing.

“Only a handful of Hamas commanders knew about the zero hour,” he said. The Hamas member also denied reports that Iranian security forces helped them plan the attack or gave a go-ahead during a meeting in Beirut. He added that none from the central command or political bureau of Hamas was in Lebanon last week.

He also said that Iran and Hezbollah have helped Hamas in the past but since the 2014 Gaza War, Hamas has been producing its own rockets and training its own fighters.

Barakeh said that Hamas believes that Israel had plans to kill its top leaders. He even said Hamas was shocked by the extent of the operation because it had expected Israel to prevent or limit the attack.

“We were surprised by this great collapse. We were planning to make some gains and take prisoners to exchange them. This army was a paper tiger,” he said.

However, it must be mentioned here that though Barakeh claimed that Hamas planned a small operation, an estimated 1,000 fighters had taken part in the incursion that was carried forth through attacks on land, sea and air too.

He said that nearly 2,000 Hamas fighters took place in the latest fighting out of an army of 40,000 in Gaza alone.

Hamas is prepared to fight Israel for a long time, he said, giving an example of its arsenal of rockets that he said would last a long time. “We have prepared well for this war and to deal with all scenarios, even the scenario of the long war,” he said.

Israeli TV channels have said that the death toll from the Hamas attack had climbed to 900, while 687 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli air strikes since Saturday.

(With Associated Press inputs)

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