Hamas was aware of Israeli surveillance prior to 7 October attack, says report

The Hamas leadership in Gaza was aware of Israeli attempts to surveil them and took steps to keep their communication covert, a new report in the Jerusalem Post has suggested.

Security sources told the Israeli outlet that "no-one understood" in Israeli intelligence that Hamas was able to circumvent their monitoring and attributed the failure to anticipate the 7 October attack to this.

"Otherwise, they wouldn't have left the border unguarded, with no basic response from the ground or air," said the source.

Another report in the New York Times on Thursday suggested that the Israeli military was aware of Hamas's plans to attack southern Israel for over a year.