May 16, 2024: Documents collected and interviews conducted by Israeli newspaper Haaretz revealed that senior Hamas leaders had a plan for what they would do if they somehow invaded and conquered Israel. First, Palestinian occupied Israel would be divided up into several cantons, each ruled by a Hamas leader. The plan included details on which Israelis would be killed, expelled, or forced to remain because they were educated Jews and experts in the areas of medicine, engineering, technology, and civilian and military industry.

Fatah, another Palestinian organization founded in 1959 with the help of exiled Palestinian professionals working in the Persian Gulf oil states and elsewhere, eventually became the dominant political force in the West Bank after the Six Day War. In the 1990s Fatah was a major component of the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) when a peace deal was negotiated with Israel. Fatah was supposed to hold elections to select leaders but corruption eventually made the elections meaningless. That was trouble for Fatah, but the Hamas faction in Gaza won the election there and took control as an area no longer ruled by Fatah in the West Bank. Hamas was founded with the help of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood. In 2007 Hamas ejected Fatah from Gaza and Israel blockaded Fatah in Gaza, not allowing Palestinians in Gaza to enter Israel without permission.

In 2017 Hamas revealed that it was at war with Zionists, the Jewish organization in Europe that, over a century ago, advocated for the establishment of a Jewish state in the Middle East where the last Jewish state was destroyed by the Romans two thousand years ago. Since 2017 Hamas carried out an increasing number of terrorist attacks against Israelis. By then the United States and most European nations had designated Hamas a terrorist organization subject to numerous sanctions. Hamas found refuge in some Arab Gulf oil states and that enabled Hamas to keep fighting. This led to the major attack against Israeli and foreign civilians in Gaza during October 2023. Israeli military forces quickly contained that and blocked Hamas efforts to enter Israel. This Hamas offensive was supposed to be the one that would overrun and conquer Israel. That didn’t happen and one of the aftereffects of that failed offensive was the revelations of Hamas plans for Israel after they conquered it.

Haaretz collected all the information needed to document Hamas plans and remind Israelis that Hamas was deadly serious about continuing its fight to destroy Israel.