A senior Hamas military commander has backed away from criticism of the terror group’s leaders, claiming that the barbaric October 7 attacks were never intended 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 original plan was to kill Israeli soldiers and take some troops hostage.
But he said orders were changed at the last minute by Hamas political leaders, leading to the gruesome rape, torture and murder of more than 1,400 children, women and men. Hundreds of Israelis were taken back to Gaza as hostages.
“I am one of the planners (of October 7) and we did not expect it to happen like this,” he said last week on the encrypted Telegram app.
“Our leadership has said to our little ones: Go, do whatever you want and take whatever you want… They see and witness that we have killed babies.”
“It was not planned that we would penetrate civilian areas and take 250 hostages.” They are civilians. Our plan was to take a few with us [military] Hostages in return for our prisoners.’
Children’s toys and personal belongings lie on the blood-stained floor of a child’s room after a deadly infiltration by armed Hamas fighters from the Gaza Strip at Kibbutz Beeri
A woman flees after Hamas terrorists attacked the Supernova festival in southern Israel, killing 260 people
The aftermath of an attack by Palestinian militants on the Supernova music festival
A destroyed house in Kibbutz Be’eri, Israel, attacked by Hamas on October 7
The commander, codenamed Abu Mohammed, accused Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar of behaving like a “street fighter.” He said the Hamas leadership, which ordered its terrorists to “do whatever they want,” did not live in Gaza and faced retaliation from Israel.
“Our reason for speaking is to raise our voices to the world.” My dear Gaza Strip is being bombed. The problem is with our leadership.”
He claimed that Hamas’ military commanders in Gaza were effectively cut off from the political leadership and were now relying on messengers like those “from ancient times.”
He said he only had a few dates and olive oil to eat, unlike the group’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh, and others who live in luxury in Qatar and Turkey.
“We don’t know which direction to go next.” “We don’t know which path to take,” he said, claiming that several other Hamas commanders were now questioning the leadership.
“They destroyed us.”
In the barbaric October 7 attacks, Hamas fired a barrage of rockets from Gaza and sent militants across the border, killing 1,400 people and taking around 240 hostage.
More than 270 bodies, mostly young people, were scattered across the site of a music festival at a kibbutz in the Negev Desert after Hamas attackers crossed the border on paragliders and fired indiscriminately into the crowd.
At a nearby kibbutz in southern Israel, Hamas terrorists massacred at least 40 babies and toddlers before beheading some of them and shooting their families.
In the attack, around 70 Hamas fighters armed with machine guns and grenades stormed the otherwise quiet Kibbutz Kfar Aza in southern Israel and indiscriminately killed men, women and children.
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 completely destroyed in the attack and the walls had collapsed and burned down.
The death toll dwarfs the scale of all previous Islamist attacks except 9/11. Scores of Israelis were taken to Gaza as hostages, and some were paraded through the streets.
A survivor of the Hamas festival massacre revealed yesterday that she had to hide under her boyfriend’s body in the back of a shipping container as terrorists crossed the Israeli 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 shot dead in front of her by Hamas terrorists.
She lost blood quickly after being shot in the foot and hip, but knew she had to stay silent to stay alive.
Noam and her boyfriend were among the terrified revelers who fled for their lives as Hamas gunmen chased them on foot at the festival as rockets rained from the sky.
Noam Mazal Ben-David (with boyfriend), 27, was forced to play dead for two hours amid a pile of corpses after her partner David Neman and dozens of others were shot dead by Hamas terrorists
Disturbing footage shows the moment Noam hid in a shipping container as a massacre unfolded at the Supernova festival
An Israeli officer walks across the grounds of the Super Nova festival in Re’im, Israel, on Tuesday. Festival-goers left their belongings behind and fled from Hamas terrorists
The weekend-long outdoor rave billed as a celebration of “friends, love and infinite freedom” turned into an unimaginable bloodbath when Hamas terrorists stormed the Supernova festival in southern Israel, killing 260 people.
The couple arrived at the festival at 6:30 a.m. on October 7, unaware that it would be a day when Hamas would unleash terror against Israel and slaughter 1,400 Israelis, many of them civilians.
Describing the moment she was told by security to run for her life as terrorists sprayed the festival with bullets, she told the Express: “They surrounded us and just kept shooting nonstop.”
“I heard a girl screaming, “Please don’t take me.” Just leave me alone.” But they kidnapped her anyway. They did terrible, terrible things to her.’
Noam, who was unable to escape in her car because terrorists blocked the exits, recalled how they frantically called family and friends, sharing their whereabouts and begging for help.
She described how one of the revelers who was in the dumpster with them shouted that she had been seen by the gunmen.
“As the Hamas gunmen approached, David took me and threw me at the back of the container and told me to go in as deep as I could and hide. “One of them jumped in and shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’, a bomb exploded and they started firing continuously,” she said.
“It was a game of Russian roulette to see 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 shot in the shoulder.
At that moment, Noam closed his eyes, expecting never to open them again. She miraculously survived despite being shot in the foot and hip.
The ruthless terrorists had assumed she was dead as she lay among the pile of corpses.
Noam called her family to tell them that David had been killed and admitted to them that she didn’t think she would make it.
This graphic shows how Hamas terrorists attacked 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 attack on the Supernova desert music festival Oct. 7
A nursery in Kibbutz Be’eri shows signs of destruction and bloodshed
The artist was eventually found by the Israeli Defense Forces, who provided her with life-saving assistance. Noam was one of only four of the 16 who hid in the surviving container.
In the weeks following the festival massacre, grim footage showed Hamas gunmen immediately opening fire on hundreds of terrified Israeli revelers who were forced to run for their lives.
A video shot from a terrorist’s truck shows the rampaging gunmen driving down a street, covered in the bodies of their already killed victims and their bullet-riddled cars, unleashing more horrors that defy imagination.
Here, drawn by the crackle of gunfire before them, the gunmen saw hundreds of screaming youths running across the nearest field to the festival, where they had seen their friends shot dead by Hamas terrorists.
Without hesitation, two gunmen raised their assault rifles and began firing one after the other at the fleeing revelers. Within seconds, dozens of other terrorists jumped out of their pickup trucks and also began firing shots.
Some fired from a truck equipped with machine guns, while a gunman jumped onto the hood of a slain victim’s abandoned car to shoot over the trees at the screaming revelers, picking them off one by one with a hail of bullets.
The sickening sound of the shots lasted for 40 seconds – the terrorists did not let up in their cruelty. The gunmen appear to decide there are no more victims to shoot and then turn back to their trucks before the video cuts out.
The terrorists also released harrowing videos showing the gunmen dragging screaming mothers and their young children to waiting trucks before driving them out of their neighborhood.
Among the videos was one that showed 25-year-old student Noa Argamini screaming “Don’t kill me!” as she was dragged away from the Nova festival by laughing Hamas gunmen. Her whereabouts are unknown.
For more than six hours, thousands of festival-goers hid without help from the Israeli army while Hamas militants fired automatic shots and threw grenades.
Another tragic victim of the festival was Shani Louk, who was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists at the Nova Electronic Festival and paraded in 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 last week that she was dead after a bone was found from the base of her skull.
Shocking images after the festival showed abandoned vehicles and tents of revelers who had traveled from far and wide to dance in the desert.
Since Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel that killed 1,400 people and took some 240 hostages, Israel has responded by relentlessly bombing Gaza.
According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, Tel Aviv’s retaliation, which included a ground attack on the area, killed more than 9,000 people.
The rising death toll since Hamas’ deadly October 7 raids has sparked widespread protests in Britain. Thousands of pro-Palestinian supporters took to the streets in London, Glasgow and Belfast on Saturday to demand a ceasefire.