One of the main questions about Hamas’ 7 October attacks remains unanswered to this day.
What did Hamas think would happen if it struck Israel on this scale?
Initially, I bought the chaos theory. It went as follows. A limited operation to hit Israeli military targets and take high-value hostages spiralled out of control, thanks to the unexpected collapse of Israel’s Gaza Brigade. Hamas expected most of the 1,400 fighters it sent over the fence that day to be killed. Most of them returned alive.
As Hamas and other armed groups ran out of preordained targets, they fanned out and stumbled across a music festival they did not know was there. The ensuing carnage became, in the words of one Gulf diplomat: “the mother of all miscalculations”.
As each month of this war succeeds the last, I am less and less certain that this theory is correct…..more
