Hamas official: We surprised by such great collapse of Israel

A high-ranking representative of Hamas, Ali Barakeh, said that the Palestinian movement expected more resistance from Israel during the attack on October 7.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Baraka listed the reasons for the attack on Israel — this is a series of government actions over the last year.

He rejected the information about involvement in the planning of Iran or the Shiite group "Hezbollah". According to him, only 2,000 militants out of 40,000 in the Gaza Strip took part in the Hamas operation.

The representative of the Palestinian movement said that the attack was planned by about half a dozen commanders in the Gaza Strip, and even the closest allies were not informed about it. He denied information from The Wall Street Journal that the attack was planned together with Iran at meetings in Beirut. Barakeh claims that the military and political leadership of "Hamas" did not visit the Lebanese capital last week.

Ali Barakeh confirmed that earlier Iran and Hezbollah helped the Palestinian movement. However, according to him, since 2014, Hamas has been producing missiles and training its fighters.

The representative of the movement also refuted the assumption that the attack was aimed at disrupting the efforts of the United States to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

According to him, the reason was the actions of the Israeli government during the last year, including "provocative visits to the holy places of Jerusalem" and increased pressure on Palestinian prisoners. "Hamas", according to him, also assumed that Israel was preparing to kill the leadership of the movement.

According to Barakeh, even Hamas itself was shocked by the scale of the operation. The movement expected Israel to "prevent or limit" the attack. “We were surprised by this great collapse,” Barakeh said. “We were planning to make some gains and take prisoners to exchange them. This army was a paper tiger.”

As AP notes, his words are contradicted by the fact of a large-scale attack by "Hamas" with the participation of about 1 thousand. fighters on land, sea and with the use of paragliders.