Sinwar's Pre-October 7 Message Was Deliberate Smoke Screen

Following the storm surrounding revelations of a secret channel between Hamas and associates of Mohammed Dahlan that reached the Shin Bet, Israeli sources are shedding light on the nature of information Yahya Sinwar passed in September 2023. While the transmission of information itself is confirmed, a senior Israeli intelligence official clarifies it was not an operational warning.

According to details reported by Baruch Yedid on i24news, the real purpose was creating a smoke screen: while Sinwar conveyed messages of arrangement and calm, his deputy was already finalizing the massacre date with Iran.

According to known details, in September 2023 "intelligence" information was transmitted from Yahya Sinwar to Sufian Abu Zaida, a senior Fatah figure and Dahlan associate. The information was passed within a short time both to Dahlan himself and to the Shin Bet. Abu Zaida has maintained long-standing ties with senior Hamas figure Ghazi Hamad, a channel that according to previous reports was established on Prime Minister Netanyahu's orders after Operation Protective Edge.

Simultaneously, Abu Zaida maintained contact with a senior Shin Bet official who until recently served as a senior figure in the hostages and missing persons portfolio. In fact, contact between the intelligence establishment and Dahlan's office continues to this day. While a report of a direct conversation between UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed and Prime Minister Netanyahu on the matter cannot currently be verified, the arrival of the information to Israeli intelligence arms is not in doubt.

The central question that arose is why the information did not lead to special preparedness or a preemptive strike. A very senior Israeli intelligence source provides a definitive answer regarding the quality of material received. "This information was not warning intelligence, not quality, and not operational, and it fell far short in quality compared to intelligence collected in Israel," the senior official states. Therefore, in his assessment, "this information did not move the system to action."

The Israeli senior official compared the quality of the information to the famous golden warning from the Yom Kippur War, clarifying: "In short, this information was not the chemicals of Ashraf Marwan... In any case, the conception swallowed all the signs into it, and it's what killed us all."

If the information had no operational value, why did Sinwar bother passing it to Dahlan associates knowing it would reach Israel? The answer, according to sources, lies in the terror organization's deception strategy. Sinwar worked over an extended period to create a false impression of willingness for dialogue and arrangement.

The clearest proof of this is that just two months before he passed that message to Abu Zaida, Sinwar sent his deputy and confidant, Khalil al-Hayya, to Beirut. The purpose of the trip was to meet with Iranian elements and finalize with them the date of the massacre planned for October 7.

This deception effort was not isolated. Israel identified additional phenomena indicating a systematic pattern of operation: for more than two years before the war, Hamas figures approached journalists and former senior officials attempting to convince them that Sinwar's face was turned toward establishing a "civilian rescue front" to rehabilitate Gaza. Additionally, Hamas encouraged various parties to open mediation channels on the issue of hostages and missing persons. All these actions were designed to create a thick smoke screen that would allow Hamas to complete preparations for the massacre undisturbed.