New details emerged about how Hamas was able to carry out the October 7 attack, CNN reported.
The attack involved old counterintelligence measures, underground tunnels and over-ground training.
Sourced told CNN that a small group of Hamas operatives used hard wired phones and tunnels beneath Gaza to communicate over a period of two years, according to intelligence data shared with US officials.
Those old-fashioned landlines allowed Hamas leaders to communicate with one another in secret. They avoided using computers or cellphones in order to keep from being tracked by Israeli or US intelligence.
They met personally in a small group and stayed off digital communications, which explained why Israel and the US were caught off guard by the attack and how one thousand Hamas fighters were able to pour across the border without being stopped.
The video released by Hamas showed a massive underground tunnel system, which the IDF nicknamed the Gaza metro.
Hamas was also able to keep the operation under the radar because the planning of the October 7 attack remained a secret even from other members. Only a very small group became aware of the mission just before it was carried out. Hamas ground unit commanders and fighters who were training for many months and kept the state of general preparedness found out about the specific plan just a few days before the terrorist attack.
According to a source, some training above ground was seen but did not cause a major alarm: Hamas always trained soldiers in such a way.
Israel had already found hardwired phones in Hamas strongholds in the past. The military discovered a similar kind of communication system when they raided a city in the northern west bank over the summer.