The IDF on Monday released an internal planning document from Hamas that details a scheme to plant explosives near refugee camps in the Gaza Strip. According to the document, the goal was to create chaos and panic among the civilian population—providing cover for senior operatives and fighters to escape as Israeli forces closed in.
The document, written in April 2024 by Hamas’s engineering division, lays out the cynical exploitation of civilians. The plan called for detonating the explosives as IDF troops approached the camps, putting the lives of displaced people sheltering there at direct risk. Hamas knew these operations could harm civilians but chose to advance them anyway for its own purposes.
The document also proposes additional methods for using the population as human shields. It suggested planting explosives along routes and corridors used by Gaza residents to slow the advance of Israeli forces. It also recommended firing sound bombs into the camps to create panic that would allow fighters hiding in the area to escape under cover of the chaos.
The document’s release is further evidence that Hamas systematically operates from within the civilian population and will stop at nothing to advance its terrorist activities—even at the cost of deliberately endangering the lives of Gaza residents themselves. It’s another proof of the organization’s brutality and its complete disregard for human life.