By William J. Furney
Hamas had far grander plans for terrorist attacks on Israel, including a devastating scheme to destroy a Tel Aviv skyscraper in a manner similar to the 9/11 attacks in New York, newly uncovered documents reveal. The plans, which were captured by Israeli forces during their ground offensive in Gaza, showcase the militant group’s broader ambitions and their long-term goal of inflicting unprecedented destruction on Israel, going beyond the deadly October 7, 2023, assault.
The documents, some of which have been seen by The Washington Post, include detailed proposals for a coordinated wave of attacks against Israel. Among these is a plan to topple one of Tel Aviv’s tallest buildings, either the Moshe Aviv Tower or one of the Azrieli Center skyscrapers. According to an annotated presentation discovered in a Hamas command post, the destruction of a high-rise in the heart of Tel Aviv was intended to echo the catastrophic events of September 11, 2001, when two planes crashed into the World Trade Center, causing its collapse and killing nearly 3,000 people.
The captured materials not only reveal Hamas’s tactical ambitions but also provide a chilling glimpse into their strategic goals, which include annihilating the Jewish state. The group’s leadership had been reaching out to Iran for financial and military support as early as 2021, requesting hundreds of millions of dollars to bolster their fighting forces and enhance their capabilities. The newly uncovered papers detail how Hamas sought Iranian backing to launch these large-scale attacks, which would involve land, sea, and air assaults on key Israeli targets.
Ambitious Plans for Tel Aviv Destruction
The most alarming element of the uncovered documents is a blueprint for what Hamas envisioned as their most spectacular attack: the destruction of a Tel Aviv skyscraper. The Moshe Aviv Tower, standing 70 stories tall, and the Azrieli Center complex, which includes three prominent towers, were identified as potential targets. The plan outlines how the collapse of one of these buildings would not only kill hundreds, if not thousands, but would also cause severe disruption to Israel’s government and military functions, with the hope of crushing nearby military headquarters in the process.
“If this tower is destroyed in one way or another, an unprecedented crisis will occur for the enemy, similar to the crisis of the World Trade Center towers in New York,” a translation of one document reads. The plan even considered the possibility of the collapse of a high-rise structure causing secondary damage to Israeli military command centers located nearby.
But the documents also show that Hamas had not yet worked out the exact method to bring the skyscraper down, simply noting that they were “working to find a mechanism to destroy the tower”. This suggests that while the ambition was clear, the technical capability to execute such a devastating attack was still in development.
In addition to the skyscraper plot, the documents detail several other attack strategies, including targeting Israel’s rail system. Hamas had identified the country’s fuel transport network as a potential weak point and envisioned derailing fuel-laden trains to create massive explosions in densely populated areas. The documents describe this as a “moving bomb” scenario, highlighting Hamas’s willingness to use large-scale infrastructure for their terror operations.
Hamas Seeks Iranian Support for Wider War
The documents, believed to have been written between 2021 and 2023, include direct correspondence from Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in Gaza, to senior Iranian officials. In these letters, Sinwar outlines a strategy to enlist Tehran’s financial and military aid in preparing for a broader war with Israel. The letters ask for $500 million in funding and Iranian training for 12,000 new Hamas fighters, pledging that this support would enable Hamas to “uproot” Israel within two years.
“We promise you that we will not waste a minute or a penny unless it takes us toward achieving this sacred goal,” Sinwar wrote in one letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in 2021. The letters demonstrate that Hamas was not only planning for immediate attacks but also for a long-term campaign of destruction, positioning themselves as the key players in a regional conflict that would draw in other militant groups and potentially spark a wider war.
While it remains unclear how much of this support, if any, Iran ultimately provided, U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies believe that Iran has supplied Hamas with hundreds of millions of dollars over the years, as well as military training. Yet analysts suggest that Iran was not fully aware of the specifics of Hamas’s plans, particularly the October 7 attack that killed more than 1,200 people in southern Israel, making it the deadliest assault on Jewish civilians since the Holocaust.
Complex Relationship Between Hamas and Iran
Hamas’s relationship with Iran has been long-standing but complex. As a Sunni Islamist group, Hamas has not always aligned itself with Shiite-ruled Iran. But since 2014, the relationship between the two has grown closer, with Hamas increasingly relying on Iranian funding and support to sustain its military operations against Israel. The documents show that Hamas leaders believed Iran’s backing was crucial for their plans to succeed and repeatedly sought greater assistance from Tehran.
Despite this close relationship, there are indications that Sinwar deliberately kept details of the October 7 attack secret from Iran and Hezbollah, fearing that the plan would leak. Instead, Sinwar appears to have convinced himself that Hamas could initiate a broader conflict that would force its allies to join the fight.
Broader Ambitions for Regional Conflict
Hamas’s plans went beyond Israel. The captured documents outline a wider regional strategy, involving coordinated attacks with allied groups from Lebanon, Syria, and even Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. The aim was to overwhelm Israel by attacking from multiple directions at once, a strategy designed to confuse Israeli defences and force the country into a protracted and destructive war.
Hezbollah, Hamas’s key ally in Lebanon, began launching rockets into northern Israel on the same day as the October 7 attack, though they stopped short of a full-scale assault. Hamas’s leadership had hoped that the initial success of their operation would trigger a broader war involving Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed groups, but this did not materialise as they had expected.
Implications of the Captured Documents
The documents not only provide insight into Hamas’s long-term ambitions but also raise serious questions about the future of the conflict between Israel and its militant enemies. The scale of the planning suggests, say analysts, that Hamas is willing to push its war against Israel to unprecedented levels of destruction, and that they see Iranian support as essential to their success.
For now, Israel is focused on neutralising Hamas’s immediate threat, but the existence of such detailed plans for large-scale attacks means that the conflict may only deepen in the future.
* Image: File.