Hamas leader didn't expect consequences of 7 October attack to be "this dangerous" Friend says

The top Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, was one of the main planners of the 7 October attack on Israel but did not expect the consequences to become "this dangerous", a friend has told Sky News.

Esmat Mansour said last year's cross-border raid was supposed to be a strategic operation designed to lift the Israeli siege on the territory, release Sinwar's friends from prison, and make him a "leader of the Palestinian people".

But the calculations "didn't go as planned", the reaction of the Israelis was "uncontrolled, without any justification", and "now we have this result", he explained.

"He [Sinwar] didn't expect the operation to make things this complicated and to go as far as it did and become this dangerous. And [it] gave Israel all the reasons and excuses to break all the rules."

Speaking from Ramallah in the West Bank, Mansour said: "I think he was one of the main people behind this operation."

He claimed that if Sinwar knew what the consequences of the assault would be, he "would never have planned an operation this way".