Hebrew media revealed that Hamas fighters in Gaza used Israeli communications chips before the “Al-Aqsa Flood” attack, which enabled them to communicate better in southern Israel, which the occupation army acknowledged and considered at the time “training.”
The occupation army acknowledged what was reported by Hebrew media that Hamas fighters used Israeli communications SIM cards that helped carry out the “Al-Aqsa Flood” attack, but it objected to the numbers of SIM cards.
At dawn on October 7, 2023, Hamas and other Palestinian factions in Gaza launched Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood,” in response to “the continuing attacks by Israeli forces and settlers against the Palestinian people, their property, and their sanctities, especially Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem.”
Yesterday, Monday, Israeli media revealed that Hamas fighters in Gaza activated Israeli communications chips before the “Al-Aqsa Flood” attack.
The Hebrew Channel 14 said, the day before yesterday, Sunday, that about a thousand SIM cards were activated simultaneously hours before the Hamas attack on southern Israel.
The occupation army commented on these reports, saying, “At around midnight, before the attack on October 7, intelligence monitored the operation of dozens of Israeli SIM cards in Gaza, not 1,000 SIM cards.”
A statement by the army and the General Security Service (Shin Bet) denied the activation of 1,000 Israeli SIM cards, and said that in practice, “several indicators have accumulated, including, among other things, the activation of only dozens of SIM cards, which were activated in previous incidents in the past.”
Because devices equipped with Israeli SIM cards had been activated in the past without anything happening, this led Israeli intelligence officials to believe that Hamas might be carrying out training as it had done in the past. This was not seen as a definitive sign of a planned attack, and they decided to continue consultations. On this issue throughout the night, according to the “Times of Israel” website.
The Times of Israel said that the SIM cards likely enabled Hamas members to communicate better in southern Israel during the attack.
Days after the Hamas attack, Shin Bet head Ronen Bar claimed responsibility for the failures that led to the Hamas attack.
In a message to Shin Bet employees, Bar said: “Despite the series of measures we took, unfortunately, on Saturday, we failed to provide sufficient warning that would allow us to thwart the attack. As head of the organization, the responsibility for this falls on my shoulders.”
Last month, Barr called on the government to immediately form an official investigation committee to “examine the failures” that occurred during the attack.
“Not the first time.” Two Palestinian institutions: Israel manipulates the names of martyrs and wounded
Two Palestinian institutions concerned with prisoners’ affairs stated that Israel is “manipulating” the names of the martyrs and wounded, and called on all international human rights levels to restore their necessary role in the face of this repeated behavior of the occupation.
On Tuesday, two institutions concerned with prisoners’ affairs accused the Israeli authorities of “tampering with the names of the martyrs” and giving inaccurate information about the fate of the wounded to Palestinian institutions.
This came in a joint statement by the Commission for the Affairs of Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners (governmental) and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club (Ahli), a copy of which was received by Anatolia.
In their statement, the two institutions denounced the existence of “a fraudulent operation that is not the first of its kind” when announcing the martyrs and wounded on February 22.
The joint statement added: "We discovered that the one who was announced as a martyr was the wounded one, and vice versa."
He continued: “It was revealed that the second martyr who rose on February 22, alongside the martyr Muhammad Issa Zawahra from Bethlehem, is Ahmed Azzam Al-Wahsh (31 years old) from Bethlehem, whose injury was announced at the time, while the third injured person turned out to be Kazem.” Issa Zawahra (31 years old), the brother of the martyr Muhammad Zawahra, who is detained in serious health condition in the Israeli (Hadassah) Hospital.
Last Thursday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced in a statement, “The General Authority for Civil Affairs (the body communicating with the Israeli side) informed it of the martyrdom of the young man Muhammad Issa Ali Zawahra (26 years old) and the young man Kazem Issa Ali Zawahra, and the wounding of the young man Ahmed Azzam Al-Wahsh with injuries whose nature is not yet known.” ", shot by the occupation forces near the town of Al-Eizariya."
The two institutions confirmed that the process of tampering with the names of the martyrs "is not the first time that the occupation has deliberately practiced it, as it has previously tampered with the names of the martyrs and the wounded."
They explained: “Since 2021, two incidents have been recorded during which the names of the martyrs were manipulated and inaccurate information about the fate of the wounded was given to Palestinian institutions. We later discovered after follow-up that the one who was declared martyred was the wounded one, and vice versa.”
The statement described that the occupation forces’ concealment of information about the fate of the martyrs and wounded, and tampering with their names, is “a serious crime that reveals intentions that the occupation may have to execute wounded detainees,” and that these practices come in light of “the genocide in Gaza and the comprehensive aggression against our people.”
The two institutions called on all international human rights levels to restore their necessary role and stop “the terrifying state of helplessness that governs their behavior in light of the ongoing crime of genocide and escalating aggression.”
Since the start of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, settlers have escalated their attacks in the West Bank, and the occupation army has also escalated its military operations against cities, towns and camps in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, leaving hundreds dead and injured and thousands of detainees.
Israel is waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip, leaving tens of thousands of victims, most of them children and women, in addition to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe and massive destruction of infrastructure and property, according to Palestinian and UN data.