The Defense Ministry unit that oversees the Gaza Strip produced a document four months before Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre recommending a potential long-term truce (hudna) with the terror group in Gaza, under which Israel would recognize Hamas rule in the enclave and grant it something akin to sovereignty, a TV report said Saturday night.

The top secret document, entitled: “Program for ‘Long-Term Truce’ in the Strip,” was written by Major General Ghassan Alian, the head of COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories), and was distributed to senior security officials on June 11, 2023, Channel 12 said.

The report said the plan was discussed the next day at a consultation led by then-IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, and Halevi’s recommendation was that the idea should be advanced with the goal of “taking the Gaza Strip in a better direction.”

The potential for establishing a long-term truce with Hamas was still considered viable days before the Hamas invasion, the TV report noted, claiming that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-defense minister Yoav Gallant sent a delegation from COGAT and the Shin Bet to Cairo 10 days before the massacre to see if it was possible to advance such a truce and protracted stability with Hamas.

The truce proposal set out in Alian’s June 11, 2023, document was initiated by Egypt, Channel 12 said. Israel’s efforts to advance it, the TV report said, underline the degree to which it was duped by Hamas into thinking that the terror group was seeking long-term calm and sovereignty in Gaza, even as it made meticulous preparations for the October 7 invasion and slaughter.

Moreover, the TV report said that practical Israeli policy, including support for years of cash funding for Gaza from Qatar and vast payments to UNRWA (the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency) that also included large sums in cash, were central to Hamas’s war machine. In the run-up to October 7, the TV report said, Israel had even allowed motorbike tires to be imported into Gaza, as well as metal that was then used by Hamas to manufacture rockets and chemicals that were used to launch them.

The truce proposal detailed in the June 11, 2023, document “in essence called for recognizing Hamas rule in Gaza, [and] granting it sovereignty — almost a state,” the TV report said.

Alian’s June 11 document was sent to the heads of the Shin Bet, Mossad, the IDF chief of staff and other senior IDF officers, as well as to the COGAT chief’s direct boss at the time, Gallant.

The report quoted the document as saying that circumstances and vectors “have created the opportunity to advance the idea of a hudna, by means of the partners: the Egyptians and the Qataris.

“These conditions ensure long-term stability and limit Hamas’s strengthening in the Strip. It is evident that Hamas is interested in advancing… an agreement on understandings, in a move that would strengthen the more moderate elements of the Hamas leadership in Gaza.”

The TV report noted that Yahya Sinwar, the October 7 architect, had said in a 2006 Channel 12 interview, while in an Israeli prison, that he was interested in a long-term truce, which would “enable calm for our generation and maybe the next,” apparently underlining the long-time strategy of duplicity that preceded the 2023 massacre.

It also broadcast an audio clip of Halevi telling residents of Kibbutz Nir Oz earlier this month that Hamas “succeeded in duping us” ahead of the attack into thinking it was seeking long-term calm. Hamas had reached out to COGAT and the IDF’s Gaza Division to ask that Gaza children with cancer be treated in Israel, as an ostensible signal of a desire for cooperation “in order to lull us and prepare the ground,” Halevi said.

The report noted that by May 2023 Sinwar had even decided on the precise October 7 date for the invasion. At around the same time that Sinwar made that decision, Egypt presented an Israeli delegation in Cairo– including representatives of the Shin Bet and IDF, and headed by Alian — with the long-term truce proposal. On their return, COGAT put together a team, with members from the Shin Bet and the IDF Southern Division, to work on the idea, which in turn led to Alian’s document the next month.

The report said Hamas was maintaining a dialogue with Israel at the time, purporting to be solely interested in economic improvement for Gaza.

“Hamas is deeply concerned about an escalation into another conflict at the current time,” Channel 12 quoted Alian’s document as saying. “It is very troubled by this, including the hawkish leaders and the military wing.”

The COGAT document also distinguished between Hamas, which it asserted was showing responsible leadership and seeking sovereignty in Gaza, and the smaller Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group. “Islamic Jihad challenges the new Hamas policy regarding Israel,” the document reportedly stated.

Setting out some of what the truce would entail, the document cites “acceptance in practice of Hamas rule, and giving it the permission to entrench its influence on the Palestinian front, alongside a broadeaning of its ties with regional players.”

The document reportedly recommended “checking with the Egyptians the viability of a long-term truce” and stressed that “the logic of the truce is based on creating an Egyptian initiative, not an Israeli one.”

Halevi convened senior IDF figures, including the deputy chief of staff and the head of the air force, for a June 12 discussion on “the security regime in Gaza,” at which Alian’s document was discussed.

The TV report said Halevi’s recommendation at the end of that discussion was that work be done with the mediators to take Gaza in a better direction under the headline of a “hudna.”

In July 2023, the cabinet held its first meeting on Gaza since taking office the previous December. Headed by Netanyahu, the cabinet agreed to “advance the civilian arrangement with Hamas, while insisting on maintaining Israel’s demands in that regard, in coordination with the stages defined by COGAT,” Channel 12 reported, without elaboration.

The network said the National Security Council also presented plans at the meeting, including for “an effort to maintain long-term calm, examining long-term solutions for prolonged stability.”

The TV report said Israel’s political and security chiefs registered Hamas’s claims of wanting calm but ignored all contrary messages the group was issuing in Arabic media, where it was constantly calling for jihad. It cited a May 2022 speech by Sinwar in which he called for Palestinians to attack Israelis with whatever they had — rifles, or axes or cleavers — and a TV drama series broadcast on Hamas TV that year showing an invasion.

It also said that Netanyahu had not only encouraged Qatari funding for Gaza, but also intervened to keep money flowing to UNRWA, including in cash, after President Donald Trump stopped funding the UN body in 2018. The IDF said in March 2024 that over 450 Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives worked for UNRWA.

The report noted that Alian’s truce proposal reflected Israel’s policy on the eve of October 7, but is not mentioned in any of the IDF’s October 7 probes so far.

The report did not specify whether COGAT’s own probe into the attack refers to the document, but said that neither Halevi nor his successor Eyal Zamir have asked to see COGAT’s probe as of yet. It also noted that were the head of COGAT to be probed about the document, questions would also need to be asked of his boss at the time, Gallant, and of Netanyahu. “Such a probe would show that the government initiated and created the conception” of potential long-term calm with Hamas, together with COGAT.”

In a response to the report, COGAT told the station that Alian’s document “presented an Egyptian proposal from June 2023, and not an Israeli initiative.” It said the discussions on it “were held in accordance with the policy of the political leadership.”

Gallant, in response, reiterated his demand for a state commission of inquiry into October 7, covering at least the past decade, in which he, too, would be questioned.

The Shin Bet, IDF and Netanyahu’s office did not respond to questions, Channel 12 said.