Documents allegedly expose Yahya Sinwar’s plan to build an army along northern ‘Israel’

An alleged report by Hebrew media, drawing on documents seized during ‘Israeli’ military operations in Gaza, claims that Hamas leadership under Yahya Sinwar sought to establish a substantial fighting force along ‘Israel’s’ northern border in the years leading up to the October 2023 escalation.

The analysis, attributed to the “Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center”, centers on minutes from an August 2023 meeting of Hamas’s Shura Council in Gaza, held less than two months before the outbreak of large-scale fighting.

According to the reported records, senior Hamas figures expressed frustration that Hezbollah appeared to favor training fighters from Palestinian Islamic Jihad over those affiliated with Hamas.

One participant, identified as acting head of Hamas’s military wing Izz al-Din al-Haddad, noted that Hamas’s program in Lebanon involved only about 1,000 recruits at the time, while Palestinian Islamic Jihad had trained more than 1,500 with greater Hezbollah support.

“We have to deal with this issue and follow up on it before it is too late,” al-Haddad is quoted as telling the meeting, “so that Hamas remains at the forefront. We want to be ready in the Lebanon arena because this is our project.”

Yahya Sinwar, then Hamas’s leader in Gaza, took part in the discussion and outlined a more ambitious vision.

He allegedly acknowledged that roughly 1,000 Hamas fighters were undergoing training in Lebanese camps linked to Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The longer-term objective, however, was far larger.

“They say they are prepared to bring the number to 10,000 fighters who will be trained and become an army,” Sinwar reportedly stated.

The documents suggest Sinwar viewed the expansion of this northern presence as central to Hamas’s strategic ambitions, potentially enabling coordinated pressure on ‘Israel’ from multiple directions.

Political tensions between certain Hamas figures, including Khaled Mashaal, and Hezbollah were said to have slowed progress, yet the aspiration to build a force capable of operating as a regular army remained a stated priority.

Earlier records referenced in the same research indicate that discussions about establishing a Hamas military infrastructure in Lebanon dated back more than a decade, involving coordination with Hezbollah and Iranian representatives.

Plans reportedly included combat cells, rocket capabilities, and preparations for cross-border actions, with intermediate goals at times set around 2,000 fighters intended to operate alongside Hezbollah units.

While the full scale of the envisioned force was never realized, the alleged documents portray a sustained effort by Hamas to expand its reach beyond Gaza and create additional pressure points against ‘Israel’.