Israel confirms Hamas planned mass tunnel attack

Hamas was planning a coordinated attack on Israel to inflict mass civilian casualties, an Israeli spokesman told Vanity Fair in an article published online Tuesday.

 

Khaled Meshal, the exiled leader of Hamas, vehemently denied such a scenario in a conversation with the magazine, while a top Israeli intelligence official asserted that the abduction and murder of the three Israeli teens in June inadvertently tripped up Hamas’s plans for a mass attack.

 

“Hamas had a plan,” Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, the spokesman, told Vanity Fair. “A simultaneous, coordinated, surprise attack within Israel. They planned to send 200 terrorists armed to the teeth toward civilian populations. This was going to be a coordinated attack. The concept of operations involved 14 offensive tunnels into Israel. With at least 10 men in each tunnel, they would infiltrate and inflict mass casualties.”

 

According to Vanity Fair, six senior intelligence officials described on background the situation Lerner described on record. Lerner also confirmed the story to the Times of Israel.

 

Read More: Report: Israel confirms Hamas planned mass tunnel attack – Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz