The French publication La Figaro reports that the October 7th massacre was planned in detail between three senior figures in Hamas, who shared the plan with other leaders just half an hour before it was executed.
Osama Hamdan, the Hamas representative in Lebanon, only found out about the attack from the media, after the attack had already happened. Another senior figure, Saleh al-Arouri, was told only 30 minutes before the attack, with the goal of allowing him to alert Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
The report quotes a Hamas leader living outside of Gaza, Khaled Mashaal, who commented: "Only three people knew the exact date, time, and details of the plan."
The report claims that Hezbollah was surprised by the attack, and even more so that Iran was not alerted to it beforehand. Hezbollah had planned an attack of its own at a later date, and the last-minute warning was intended to prevent Nasrallah from taking action on his own and keeping the media focused on the attacks in southern Israel.