Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar’s invasion plans to be put on display

Israel opening new exhibit featuring documents seized from Hamas, including Yahya Sinwar’s invasion plans.

By World Israel News Staff

A new exhibit at Israel’s Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center is displaying items linked to Hamas’s October 7 attack, including handwritten directives attributed to former Gaza Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, weapons used by attackers and personal belongings recovered from Sinwar.

The exhibit, opened recently at the center in Glilot in central Israel, includes Sinwar’s vest, shoes and other clothing, along with documents Israeli officials say show planning for the attack on southern Israel.

The Jerusalem Post reported that one of the documents is an August 2022 directive written by Sinwar and connected to the “Walls of Jericho” plan, the Hamas attack plan that Israeli intelligence officials had seen before October 7 but did not treat as an imminent operational threat.

The Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center, also known by its Hebrew acronym M.L.M., is run by former senior officials from IDF intelligence, the Mossad and the Shin Bet. Its Amit Terrorism and Intelligence Research Institute has published a series of reports based on captured Hamas documents recovered during the war in Gaza.

Center officials told The Jerusalem Post that Israeli military intelligence has seized more than one million physical Hamas documents and petabytes of digital material since October 7.

The IDF said earlier in the war that captured files and documents had helped troops locate Hamas tunnels, explosives and other infrastructure in Gaza.

“The unit analyzes and concludes operational meanings, which improves the activity of the forces fighting in the Gaza Strip,” the IDF said in a December 2023 statement on its document-analysis unit.

The exhibit includes maps and operational materials seized from Hamas Nukhba attackers, including detailed plans for the Israeli communities targeted on October 7. The maps showed detailed intelligence on security weak points in the communities attacked.

Other items include a Quran edition produced around the theme of “the al-Aqsa Flood,” Hamas’s name for the attack, and a book of religious rulings that the exhibit says was used to justify attacks on Israeli civilians. The exhibit also displays weapons recovered from the assault, including arms described as Iranian, Russian, North Korean, Egyptian, Chinese and locally manufactured.

The exhibit includes trucks and motorcycles used by Hamas-led attackers who crossed into southern Israel on October 7. Several cars damaged during the attack on the Supernova music festival are also on display.

A separate section focuses on Israeli victims of the attack, with photos of the 1,224 people the exhibit identifies as having been killed by Hamas on October 7.

The exhibit also includes videos about the attack, the hostages, the work of first responders and civilians and security personnel who helped save others.

The center’s exhibit also highlights the involvement some Gaza journalists and UNRWA employees had with Hamas.

The new exhibit follows earlier public displays of October 7 evidence, including the “Return to October” exhibit at Glilot, which displayed weapons, orders, religious materials and other items recovered from Hamas attackers and from Gaza.

gaza stripHamasOctober 7thYahya Sinwar