IDF Reveals Hamas Plan to Bomb Gaza Camps to Cover Operatives' Escape

The IDF on Monday released an internal Hamas document that lays out a plan to plant bombs around camps for displaced Gazans and set them off as Israeli troops drew near. According to JNS, the military said Hamas's engineering department wrote the document in April 2024. The goal was to create panic, a smokescreen that would let Hamas terrorists slip away from advancing Israeli forces.

The document went further, The Jerusalem Post reports. It proposed planting bombs along routes used by Gazan civilians to delay the advance of Israeli troops. It also proposed firing stun grenades into the camps to create chaos so that Hamas operatives hiding there could flee. The Post says the plan sought small tactical gains such as "creating smoke screens, distracting the enemy, and divert[ing] their focus and efforts away from the primary objective."

In its own statement, the IDF said the plans were part of Hamas's preparations to protect its leadership and operatives and move them out of areas where the army was expected to operate, while risking the lives of the civilians around them, despite knowing the actions could significantly harm them. "This is further evidence that the Hamas terrorist organization is willing to endanger the lives of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip in order to advance its terrorist activities," the IDF said.

What it means: The Post describes a plan that explicitly used Gaza's civilians for the benefit of Hamas's leadership and showed intent to harm them for minor tactical advantages. The document dates from April 2024, in the middle of the war, and the IDF says it is being made public for the first time.

The release came as the IDF said it killed three terrorists from Hamas's "military wing," including a cell commander, in airstrikes across Gaza over the weekend, JNS reports. In separate strikes the army killed Abdullah Mohammed Khamis Jaber, who it said played a significant role in Hamas's weapons production headquarters, and Amer Bashir Mohammed Khourani, a member of the group's engineering battalion, in Jabalia. The IDF said the terrorists "operated to restore the organization's military capabilities, in systematic violation of the ceasefire."

JNS reports that the document, as the IDF presented it, shows Hamas planted explosive devices next to displaced persons camps during the war "to confuse the enemy's efforts." The IDF's own statement adds that the plan covered paths and routes that residents of Gaza used or might use. It also describes the devices Hamas wanted to fire into the camps as sonic bombs, meant to spread chaos and panic so that operatives hiding there could get away.

On the weekend strikes, the IDF said the terrorists it killed had recently advanced attacks against IDF troops and Israeli civilians. "The terrorists were eliminated in aerial strikes to remove the threat," the military said, according to JNS.