Hamas October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar believed Israel might respond to the invasion by using nuclear weapons against Gaza; a new document that he wrote by hand on August 24, 2022, has been revealed to the public on Monday.
This latest document was disclosed by the Amit Terrorism and Intelligence Research Institute as part of an ongoing series of rolling reveals of Hamas documents captured by the IDF during its counter-invasion of Gaza.
Prior documents revealed by the Amit Institute or the IDF in October 2025 or earlier were also written by Sinwar and addressed similar topics, with one even written on the same day, but this document goes into the nuclear weapons scenario in the most depth.
Israel would, in any case, mount a powerful response
In an overlapping document, Sinwar warned that the window of opportunity for achieving the surprise effect of the invasion was six to ten hours, during which Israel’s ability to launch a counteroffensive had to be impeded.
Sinwar then added in the currently revealed document that Israel would in any case mount a powerful response, and he did not rule out the possibility that it would use nuclear weapons.
"Defense plan: The enemy will not hesitate to use all the means and weapons at its disposal, not only through attack but also by other means," Sinwar wrote in the document. "It may even use a nuclear bomb. But first it will be surprised by the attack and descend into chaos. As an additional precaution, a popular operation should be organized to return to the villages and symbolically reoccupy them. This campaign is a battle of life or death, and there will be life, with Allah’s help."
Despite his concern that Israel using nuclear weapons in response to an invasion was a real risk, "he did not abandon his messianic vision and emphasized that it would be a 'battle of life or death,' even if the price was the destruction of the Gaza Strip," wrote the Amit Institute.
Secret Hamas internal documents
The new document also discussed an invasion force of up to 10,000 Hamas fighters for over 200 Israeli communities and IDF outposts, whereas later versions of the plan and the actual invasion involved around 2,000 Hamas terrorists in the first wave, a similar number in the second wave, and a disorganized additional around 1,600 untrained Gazans in the third wave, for a total of around 5,600 invaders.
Systematically deceiving Israel into complacency
On June 18, new secret Hamas internal documents which IDF intelligence had provided to the Amit Institute were provided exclusively to The Jerusalem Post.
An analysis by the Amit center included six documents viewed by the Post, showing the progression of Hamas's secret plans 2022-2023 to systematically deceive Israel into complacency so as to surprise the IDF during the October 7, 2023 invasion.
Although much is already known about Hamas's deception, these original documents had not previously been viewed by the public and revealed a variety of new pieces of color in the puzzle of Hamas's strategy and tactics.