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'Insane' Hamas chiefs 'planned to INVADE Israel, kill civilians to force others to live in a Palestinian State - with the terror group's leaders each given their own region to rule'
Hamas commanders planned to invade wider Israel and divide it up between the group's leaders, killing settlers and integrating others into a Palestinian State, according to a former official in the West Bank.
A former high-ranking official in Fatah, a political organisation of Arab Palestinians , told Israeli outlet Haaretz that Hamas had long planned to 'bring Israel down', going so far as to divide the territory into cantons.
'One day, a well-known Hamas figure calls and tells me with pride and joy that they are preparing a full list of committee heads for the cantons that will be created in Palestine,' Iyad (not his real name) told the outlet.
Iyad claimed he did not take talk of of 'the last promise' seriously until 2021, when he realised 'the entire leadership had been taken captive by the [Hamas leader, Yahya] Sinwar group's deranged idea of an all-out battle', per Israeli journalist Shlomi Eldar.
'So strongly did they believe in the idea that Allah was with them, and that they were going to bring Israel down, that they started dividing Israel into cantons, for the day after the conquest,' he said, dubbing Sinwar an 'insane fanatic'.
Yahya Al-Sinwar, Gaza Strip chief of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement, speaks during a rally to mark the annual al-Quds Day, in Gaza, April 14, 2023
Israeli police officers evacuate a woman and a child from a site hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, southern Israel, Saturday, October 7, 2023
People flee following Israeli air strikes on a neighbourhood in the al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on November 6, 2023
Iyad told the outlet that he was offered the chairmanship of the Zarnuqa committee after the planned invasion, 'where my family lived before 1948'.
He claimed to have turned down the offer to 'lead the group that would be in charge of rehabilitating the Ramle-Rehovot area' now standing in the region 'on the day after the realisation of 'the last promise''.
'You're out of your minds,' Iyad said he told the Hamas official, asking them not to contact him again.
That year, Sinwar sent a written speech to the Hamas-sponsored 'The Promise of the Hereafter Conference', attended by other Palestinian groups, exploring preparations for the future administration of a wider state of Palestinian after Israel 'disappears'.
The Hamas leader said at the time the conquest of the 'state of the Zionists' was 'closer now than ever before', reiterating efforts to bring about Hamas' 'strategic vision' and plans for 'what will come after it'.
Among the reported plans was a document of independence that would be 'a direct continuation of the Pact of "Umar Bin Al-Khattab" concerning Byzantine Jerusalem's surrender to the Muslim conquerors which took place apparently in 638', a new currency, and a call for a guide for resettling refugees wishing to return.
The conference also recommended rules for dealing with the Jewish population, including defining which would be killed, which would be prosecuted, and which would be allowed to leave or remain and be integrated into a new state, per American research institute MEMRI.
The conference also discussed the risk of a brain drain and how to ensure 'educated Jews and experts in the areas of medicine, engineering, technology and civilian and military industry' stay - by preventing them from leaving.
Sinwar said at the time that Hamas was sponsoring this conference because it is in line with our assessment that victory is nigh' and that 'the full liberation of Palestine from the sea to the river' is 'the heart of Hamas's strategic vision.'
Hamas, formed in 1987 by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, has controlled the Gaza Strip since winning the 2006 parliamentary elections and toppling rival party Fatah in a power struggle during the bloody Battle of Gaza in 2007.
Fatah, the largest faction of the multi-party Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), retained control of the Palestinian National Authority in the West Bank through its president and oversees a number of Palestinian refugee camps.
A boy pushes a young girl in a wheelchair past a destroyed building in Gaza City on March 28
Palestinian militants ride an Israeli military vehicle that was seized by gunmen who infiltrated areas of southern Israel, in the northern Gaza Strip October 7, 2023
A Palestinian family rides on the back of a donkey-drawn carriage next to damaged buildings in Khan Yunis on April 8, 2024
Since the Battle of Gaza, Hamas has made a number of reconciliation attempts with Fatah, without lasting agreement.
Hamas usurped the acting authorities in Gaza in 2006 on a campaign against corruption and vowing to reclaim land taken lost to Israel since the latter's founding in 1948. The Palestinians have not held elections since then.
They also won support in promises to resettle Palestinians displaced from their land and property by a series of major massacres during the 1948 war, in which some 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their home and about 15,000 were killed in mass atrocities.
While Fatah, a secular organisation looking to build a Palestinian state on 1967 borders, carried out thousands of guerrilla attacks on Israel, the group has worked more to negotiate with Israel in recent years, ruling out armed resistance.
However this remains controversial, with Israel granted full control of the Palestinian economy and security matters in more than 60 per cent of the West Bank.
Hamas, an Islamist organisation that does not recognise Israel but ostensibly accepts a Palestinian state on 1967 borders, remains divisive for its continued use of armed resistance in efforts to - in their view - reclaim Palestinian land.
The group organised its first suicide bombing in 1993, destroying a bus in the West Bank carrying Israeli soldiers, killing the attacker and a Palestinian who worked nearby.
Hamas steadily refined its techniques and engaged in retaliatory attacks on Israel during periods of conflict.
The perceived resistance gained the group support from Palestinians in Gaza - though Fatah would remain more popular until the 21st century.
Horrifying footage shows cars abandoned in the wake of the October 7 attacks in southern Israel, near Kibbutz Re'im
Smoke plumes billow during Israeli air strikes in Gaza City on October 12, 2023
Palestinian father Ashraf cries as he holds the body of one of his two daughters after they were both killed in an overnight Israeli airstrike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on April 4, 2024
A poll of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza late last year, after the October 7 attack, found a rise in support for Hamas in spite of the devastation of the Gaza Strip.
The survey found 63 per cent also believed 'armed struggle' to be the most effective strategy for attaining independence - a ten per cent hike in three months.
Only 13 per cent favoured non-violent protest and 20 per cent negotiations with Israel. Support for Hamas spikes during times of conflict and falls during peacetime, pollsters say.
Nearly 90 per cent also believed Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas, head of the PNA and chair of the PLO, should resign.
The narrative around the war is somewhat complicated by access to information.
While nearly 80 per cent of Palestinians oppose the killing of Israeli civilians and the taking of hostages, 85 per cent said they have not seen footage of Hamas' atrocities against civilians on October 7.