Terror group Hamas was considering launching “an unprecedented crisis” similar to the September 11 attacks, fresh documents found by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have suggested.
The paramilitary organisation had planned a large-scale assault inside Israel’s second city, Tel Aviv, which involved a 9/11-style terror attack on skyscrapers.
The plot, headed up by now-Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, was discovered in both digital and paper form at the group’s command centres in Gaza last November.
Dubbed “The Big Project”, the proposals were created before the October 7 attacks.
The plans are thought to have been drawn up by Hamas bigwig Yahya Sinwar
REUTERS
Up to 17,000 pictures were understood to have be included in the database of evidence created in September 2022.
Images of Israeli air bases, public airports, busy transport and shopping areas were featured in plans.
And Israeli investigators also unearthed schemes to target Tel Aviv’s landmarks – the 68-storey Moshe Aviv Tower in the suburb of Ramat Gan, and the trio of skyscrapers at the Azrieli Center which contains a shopping mall, train station and cinema.
The three buildings also all straddled underground car parks – which were subject to a horror Hamas plot to “boobytrap the cars with a quantity of explosives that could blow up the towers”, according to Israeli intel.
Alongside the building barrage, the chilling plots appeared to involve hijacking trains, boats, and even sending horse-drawn chariots laden with explosives rampaging through Israel.
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Hamas had planned to fell the multi-storey complex in Tel Aviv in a similar manner to 9/11
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The bombs would not only have felled the towers – but also destroyed the Israeli defence ministry HQ which sits next to them.
Alongside the terrifying plans, “The Big Project” was headlined with a chilling statement saying: “If this tower is destroyed in one way or another, an unprecedented crisis will occur for the enemy… Similar to the crisis of the World Trade Center towers in New York.”
But late last year, just before Israel’s all-out response to Hamas’s brutal October 7 attack scuppered the planned onslaught, the group admitted in documents that it was still “working to find a mechanism to destroy the tower”.
Another terror blueprint foiled included a Hamas strike on Israel’s rail network.
The documents had outlined a plan to send swarms of fighters on various trains carrying powerful explosives.
Another terror blueprint foiled included a Hamas strike on Israel’s rail network
REUTERS
One page read: “The railway line is designated for transporting fuel, which is a weak point in the event of a train explosion after moving inside one of the cities (a moving bomb).”
But the group’s outlandish chariot plans would have seen its terrorists riding in horse-drawn carts specially built to handle rough terrain at speed and hitched up with engines, carrying weapons across major Israeli cities.
The potential attack plans were all included in the Arabic document, titled “strategy to build an appropriate plan to liberate Palestine”.
Israel believe the documents show Hamas originally plotted a three-pronged attack through the various different methods outlined above – but later decided that a smaller and more contained attack would be the best option with the October 7 attacks being drawn up shortly afterwards.