Hamas’s Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar told associates in the days prior to the terror group’s devastating October 7, 2023, attack, on Israel that an “extraordinary act” would be required to derail normalization talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia, according to a document found by the IDF in Gaza.
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday on a number of documents from recent years that discussed Hamas’s concerns about Saudi movement toward diplomatic ties with Israel, and the terror group’s efforts to hamper it.
Successive American administrations have sought to broker such an agreement, framing it as the “crown jewel” of potential normalization deals, in light of Saudi Arabia’s overarching status in the Arab and Muslim worlds.
Arab intelligence officials familiar with Hamas told the Journal that the documents appeared to be genuine.
The Journal did not publish any images of the documents, and there was no official Israeli comment.
The minutes of a meeting of Hamas’s political bureau in the Strip on October 2, 2023, cite Sinwar as saying, “There is no doubt that the Saudi-Zionist normalization agreement is progressing significantly.” The Hamas leader warned a deal would “open the door for the majority of Arab and Islamic countries to follow the same path.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, Sinwar said that it was time to activate an attack plan that the terror group had been working on for some two years “to bring about a major move or a strategic shift in the paths and balances of the region with regard to the Palestinian cause.”
Without directly quoting the document, the Journal said Sinwar — who was killed by the IDF about a year into the war — expected other Iran-backed terror and proxy groups to join the fighting.
Other documents apparently seized by the IDF and reviewed by the newspaper included one from September 2023 that recommended escalating violence in the West Bank and Jerusalem to decrease the chances of normalization between Jerusalem and Riyadh.
That document criticized the Saudis for what Hamas saw as their “weak and limited steps to neutralize” the terror group and prevent it from blocking normalization.
A Hamas briefing from August 2022, marked “secret” and composed by the group’s military leadership, urged a “reposition” in order to “preserve the survival of the Palestinian cause in the face of the broad wave of normalization by Arab countries, which aims primarily to liquidate the Palestinian cause.” That realignment increased its coordination with, among others, the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.
Then, in October that year, Hamas prepared a job advertisement, also found by the Israeli military, for a position in its Department of Arab and Islamic Cooperation to lead diplomatic efforts to stop normalization. It described the job as, in part, “Marketing the movement’s programs to confront normalization” and organizing activism groups in the Arab world to call for boycotts on entities that backed having ties with Israel.
Hamas did not respond to a request for comment on the report, the Journal said.
Though Israel and Saudi Arabia have not established diplomatic relations, their clandestine ties strengthened in recent years as they confronted a shared threat in Iran. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Saudi Arabia in November 2020 to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the first publicly reported meeting between the two.
Former US president Joe Biden’s administration sought to include a normalization accord between Israel and Saudi Arabia in a “mega-deal” it worked to sign with Riyadh, which has long made clear, however, that such an agreement would require a political horizon for the Palestinians.
The Biden administration had managed to make significant progress in the series of bilateral agreements with Saudi Arabia — and was slated to begin serious discussions with Riyadh regarding the exact terms of the Palestinian component of the package — when Hamas launched its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.
The onslaught and ensuing war derailed the normalization effort and Riyadh began to recognize that it would need more concrete steps toward the establishment of a Palestinian state, as solidarity with the Palestinians in Saudi Arabia and the region at large skyrocketed due to the devastation in Gaza.
US President Donald Trump has also pledged to broker an Israel-Saudi normalization deal, repeatedly asserting that additional countries would quickly join the Abraham Accords, which normalized ties between Israel and several Arab countries at the tail end of his first term. But during a visit to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, part of a three-day regional tour that did not include Israel, he indicated his recognition that Riyadh won’t be joining as quickly as he may have hoped.
It is not the first time that documents ostensibly found in Gaza have been leaked to the international press.
Last year, German tabloid Bild published content from an ostensible document apparently found by the IDF in Gaza. That report on the document is a key element of a leaked intelligence scandal at the Prime Minister’s Office.
The document reported on by Bild was allegedly unlawfully removed from the IDF’s military intelligence database by a reservist — a noncommissioned officer (NCO) — who gave it to Eli Feldstein, an aide to Netanyahu, who saw to it that it was transferred to Bild, though he was aware that it was obtained illicitly and that the military censorship had barred the information from publication.
The German current affairs show “Panorama” said Saturday it had acquired the full, highly classified document reported by Bild in September, and claimed that the publication seriously distorted the file.
While Bild presented the document as evidence that Hamas was not interested in reaching a serious ceasefire-hostage deal with Israel, “Panorama” said the full document showed Hamas was ready to be flexible in arrangements and sought a truce for 84 days with a pathway to ending the war.