Documents regarding the ties between the Hamas and Hezbollah terror organizations, analyzed by researchers at the Amit Terrorism and Intelligence Research Institute, shed light on the manner in which Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar saw cooperation with Hezbollah in the years leading up to the October 7th Massacre.
The documents, published by Doron Kadosh on Galei Tzahal on Sunday, show that Sinwar was not content with just one scenario, but presented Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah with several alternatives for possible attacks on Israel, assuming that each one would be conducted jointly with other members of the regional axis.
According to the documents, Sinwar also proposed more modest scenarios, in which Hezbollah and other actors had only a partial involvement. However, even in those scenarios, there was one constant principle: Sinwar viewed the Jordanian border as a primary front in a future war, not just Lebanon and Gaza.
As early as June 2022, according to the documents, Sinwar sought to push a scenario where guerrilla forces would invade Israeli territory from both Syria and Jordan. As far as he was concerned, increasing the arenas of battle would make it difficult for Israel to deal with the campaign and burden it with threats from several directions simultaneously.
The correspondence between the two terrorist leaders shows that Nasrallah took the proposals positively. He said that it was a "realistic scenario that can be realized." He added that he intends to propose the matter to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to receive his approval. That being said, none of the scenarios that Hamas and Hezbollah discussed involved Iran's direct involvement, and the Islamic Republic was meant to be left out of the fighting.
The correspondences show, according to the analysis, that Sinwar's confidence grew with each meeting. He got the impression that Nasrallah was prepared to join an extensive conflict, and that Hezbollah was ready to take a significant role in the war when it began.
A year later, in June 2023, Sinwar convened Hamas’s political bureau in Gaza and presented his updated assessment. During the meeting, he said, “In recent months, we have succeeded in bringing Hezbollah and the Iranians out of their ‘psychological deterrence’ mindset that has existed since 2006 in the Dahieh. Now the Iranians and Hezbollah are prepared..." According to the documents, his remarks reflected his belief that both actors had become more willing to join a broader conflict with Israel.
Sinwar’s assessment remained unchanged in the following months. In August 2023, about six weeks before the October 7th attack, he addressed Hamas’s Shura Council and expressed even greater confidence that his plan would succeed. “We are certain that if the great strategic battle breaks out, God willing, many fronts will be opened against this enemy," he said during the meeting.
At the same time, however, Hamas’s own intelligence apparatus offered a more cautious assessment. An internal military intelligence document warned of a “psychological barrier" within Hezbollah. According to the document, the Lebanese group harbored doubts about joining a large-scale war, presenting a more nuanced picture than the one Sinwar conveyed to Hamas’s leadership.
Despite those internal warnings, Sinwar reportedly did not change his view. The documents indicate that he remained convinced Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah would join the fighting once the offensive began and would honor the understandings discussed between the sides.
According to the report, at 6:29 a.m. on October 7th, as the attack began, Sinwar sent a letter to Nasrallah apologizing for not informing him in advance of the exact timing of the assault and urging him to join the fighting immediately. “We ask for support and assistance," he wrote, later calling on Hezbollah to “hurry and take part... in concentrated rocket bombardments... and begin a major ground offensive."
The report, first disclosed by Israeli journalist Ben Caspit, suggests that in the opening hours of the attack, Sinwar sought to rapidly expand the conflict to the northern front, expecting Hezbollah to launch a significant offensive alongside Hamas.
According to the analysis, events unfolded differently than Sinwar had anticipated. Although he appeared convinced that Nasrallah would stand by him at the outset of the war, the expected support did not materialize in the initial hours. Hezbollah joined the fighting only a day later and, according to the report, its involvement remained relatively limited rather than the large-scale offensive Sinwar had envisioned.
The analysis concludes that the gap between Sinwar’s expectations and the actual course of events is particularly evident in the internal discussions and correspondence preceding the attack. While Sinwar believed the offensive would almost automatically trigger additional fronts, that scenario did not fully materialize.
The report concludes that the October 7th attack was a massacre and an unprecedented failure, but argues that had Hezbollah entered the conflict in the manner Sinwar had planned and hoped for, the scale of the events could have been far greater. According to that assessment, Hezbollah’s decision not to launch a major offensive at the outset of the war prevented a much broader assault on communities in the Galilee.