That the aim of the attack would not have been to kill and kidnap civilians is, according to the ambassador, a blatant and unequivocal lie from Hamas.
– To now claim that it was just a mob and that they did not plan the attack is an obvious lie. Hamas planned this attack very carefully. The attack was aimed at civilians and we have found maps and detailed plans that some of the killed terrorists had with them, says Israel’s ambassador to Sweden Ziv Nevo Kulman.
In the surprise attack, 1,139 Israelis and foreign nationals visiting the country were killed. According to Israel’s Social Services Authority, 766 of them were civilians. The claim by Osama Hamdan that civilian casualties were not the goal upsets Israel’s ambassador.
“The attack went according to plan”
In an interview that TV4 Nyheternas Middle East correspondent Terese Cristiansson conducted with the high-ranking Hamas leader on the ground in Lebanon, he stated that from a military perspective the attack went according to plan, but that chaos and disorder arose when people who did not belong to Hamas joined the attack.
– Maybe it went a little faster than expected, said Osama Hamdan in the interview published yesterday.
– When Israel’s military defenses had been destroyed, a new situation was created. The Gazans got out and moved towards their own lands. Then chaos erupted. No one can say for sure what happened, but it was not part of the military operation against Israel’s army, Hamdan said in the interview with TV4.
Trying to justify
Terrorist researcher Magnus Ranstorp has previously met the high-ranking Hamas leader in Gaza. He does not give much to Osama Hamdan’s picture of how the attack took place.
– There is photographic evidence that Hamas leaders participated. Even the interrogation carried out by Israel confirms this. On videos, you can see that heavily armed Hamas personnel participated in the operation and shot down innocent people. Above all at the music festival in Re’im, says Magnus Ranstorp at the University of Defense.
According to Ranstorp, the organization is now trying to justify and relativize the attack on the seventh of October by spreading a new message to the West about what happened.
– Of course there are other factions who were also involved and possibly also some civilians. But this happened early in the morning, people had mobilized and the attack was planned, says Magnus Ranstorp.