According to the report, Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspiration, believing it was too complex for Hamas to actually carry out. Israeli officials dubbed the document laying out the detailed operation plans “Jericho Wall.” No specific date was provided for the attack, but the blueprint was a mirror of what happened on Oct. 7 and was done with extreme precision. After receiving the Hamas document last year, an Israeli military assessment concluded, “It is not yet possible to determine whether the plan has been fully accepted and how it will be manifested,” the Times reported. However, this July, an Israeli intelligence analyst warned that Hamas conducted an intense, daylong training exercise that was similar to the attack detailed in the blueprint. Emails reviewed by the Times show that an Israeli colonel brushed off the analyst's concerns. “I utterly refute that the scenario is imaginary,” the analyst wrote in the email exchanges. She cautioned that the Hamas training exercise fully matched “the content of Jericho Wall. It is a plan designed to start a war. It’s not just a raid on a village.” Some officials privately confirmed to the Times that if the military had taken the warnings seriously, the Hamas attack could have been blunted or prevented. Israel’s military and the division responsible for counterterrorism declined to comment on the Times report. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined to accept responsibility for failing to anticipate and stop the Oct. 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 people and the taking of more than 200 hostages. “We’re going to answer all these questions,” the Israeli Prime Minister told CNN’s Dana Bash. “Right now, I think what we have to do is unite the country for one purpose; to achieve victory.” Intelligence reports shared with the U.S. revealed that Hamas was able to conceal its planning by avoiding computers and cell phone, instead relying on in-person meetings and hardwired telephone lines run through an elaborate tunnel system.Israeli officials knew of Hamas’ plans for the deadly Oct. 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it was carried out, according to documents, emails, and interviews recently reviewed by The New York Times.
