(01.12.2023)

The attack was planned in plain sight. A month before the assault, Hamas posted a video to social media showing fighters using explosives to blast through a replica of the border gate, sweep in on pickup trucks and then move building by building through a full-scale reconstruction of an Israeli town, firing automatic weapons at human-silhouetted paper targets.

In the video, the militants destroyed mock-ups of the wall’s concrete towers and a communications antenna, just as they would do for real on Oct. 7.