Members of Israeli bomb squad unit inspect a site hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, Israel on October 10. Photo / AP
Members of Israeli bomb squad unit inspect a site hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, Israel on October 10. Photo / AP
Hamas terrorists targeted primary schools in order to kill babies and children or take them hostage, according to plans retrieved from the bodies of dead gunmen.
The documents, published by NBC News on Saturday, reveal that the terrorists were instructed to attack schools and a youth centre in the kibbutz of Kfar Sa’ad.
“Combat unit 1″ was directed to “contain the new Da’at school” while “Combat unit 2″ was ordered to “collect hostages,” “search the Bnei Akiva youth centre” and “search the old Da’at school,” one page labelled “Top Secret” said. Another page, with neat multi-coloured tables and labels, instructed a separate unit to “kill as many as possible” and “capture hostage” on the east side of Kfar Sa’ad.
Kfar Sa’ad was one of several kibbutzim overrun by Hamas immediately after the incursion. The printed satellite maps obtained by NBC also showed other locations in the area target for attacks including Kfar Aza, Nahal Oz and Alumim. The Israeli government has insisted that the Hamas attack was deliberately targeting civilians.
Documents leaked to American media suggest that Hamas had extraordinary intelligence about specific border units and how the Israeli military operated in general. Another set of documents retrieved by Israeli emergency responders who spoke to The New York Times showed that the attackers were organised in well-defined units with clear goals and battle plans.
One group had a specific target - the kibbutz - and the attackers were supposed to storm it from specific angles. The planning document dated October 2022 also estimated how many Israeli troops were stationed in nearby posts and how long it would take them to reach the site.
The discovery comes a day after a senior Hamas official called a rare press conference for international media in an apparent attempt to limit international outrage at the atrocities perpetrated by its gunmen on Israeli soil.
A woman lights candles in honour of victims of the Hamas attacks during a vigil at Dizengoff square in central Tel Aviv, Israel. Photo / AP
Basim Naim, head of international relations for the terrorist group, insisted that their gunmen were “keen to avoid harming civilians” and targeted only military bases and compounds in response to Israel “suffocating the people of Gaza for more than 17 years”.
Other Hamas officials went as far as to claim the 260 partygoers who were massacred at an open-air rave festival last Saturday may have been mistaken for “resting” soldiers. In another attempt at damage-control, Hamas released videos earlier this week which appear to show terrorists comforting Israeli children at the captured kibbutzim.
One clip showed a little boy sitting on the knee of one gunman in the garden of someone’s home; in another, the same boy is offered to drink from a cup. Dozens of Israeli children are known to have been killed and kidnapped in the incursion. Hamas’s unprecedented cross-border raid and ensuring attacks on the south of Israel has killed at least 1300 Israelis.
Bibi backlash
In Gaza, the death toll from Israeli’s airstrikes on Saturday climbed to 2215 and over 8000 injured. Meanwhile, families and friends of some of the hostages taken by Hamas gathered outside the Israel Defence Force’s headquarters in Tel Aviv to demand the government bring the hostages back alive.
Several hundred demonstrators waving Israeli flags converged on the street outside the headquarters of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) on Saturday afternoon. “I want my daughter home now, I want my daughter to sleep in her bed now,” said Shira Albag, whose 19-year-old daughter Liri, a soldier, was abducted by Hamas on October 7.
Palestinian children wounded in Israeli strikes are brought to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Photo / AP
“It is not only my story. Liri is one of 120 we know of. I don’t care what the government does to get them back. I’m not a politician. Asked if she was demonstrating because she feared otherwise the hostages would be forgotten, she said: “of course. I Am staying here until my daughter is back home.”
Abigail Hayat, a friend of the family of Mia Shim, a 21-year-old tattoo artist who vanished from the Supernova music festival near Re’im, said her main message was for Hamas.
“I want to say to them: you are accountable for her wellbeing. If you have her, you need to take care of her. If you want the world to think you are fighting for some kind of humanity and you are not just savages, you have to let all the girls and the children, all the hostages, go home.”
The crowd’s anger was also directed at Benjamin Netanyahu and his government, who many Israelis blame for presiding over last Saturday’s disaster. The crowd regularly broke into chants of “Bibi to jail.” One man held a hand-painted sign proposing a deal with Hamas: “We give you Netanyahu, you give us the hostages.”
Another painted a poster reading: “There is 14 billion shekels for the religious. There is no money for surveillance balloons,” to guard the Gaza border. The message referred to neglect of border security and generous funding Mr Netanyahu promised to ultra-orthodox institutions to secure the support of religious parties in the Knesset.
At one point protesters nearly clashed with police officers who arrived with a lorry of concrete blocks to close the entrance to the military headquarters. After a brief confrontation, the police agreed to leave without setting up the barricade. Asked about the anti-Netanyahu chants, Ms Hayat said: “He is accountable, but this is not the time. Our soldiers are on the border and they need to see unity behind them.
