Hamas practiced public dress rehearsal before attack

Hamas ran a public dress rehearsal for their recent attack on Israel, according to a propaganda video posted on social media by the group, which is recognized as a terrorist organization by the United States.

The video posted Sep. 12 featured fighters utilizing explosives to get through a replica of a border gate on the Gaza-Israel border. It also showed them going building-by-building through a reconstruction of an Israeli town.

Hamas gunmen attacked Israel by air, sea and land Saturday, including blasting through a ground barrier. They attacked a number of towns and military outposts near the border, taking Israel by surprise.

The attack has been seen as a major failure on the part of Israel’s intelligence services.

“There clearly were warnings and indications that should have been picked up,” Bradley Bowman, a former U.S. Army officer who is now senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told The Associated Press. “Or maybe they were picked up, but they didn’t spark necessary preparations to prevent these horrific terrorist acts from happening.”

Israel had completed a $1.1 billion project to fortify defenses along its border with Gaza in 2021. The upgrades featured a “smart fence” about 20 feet high with dark-seeing cameras, razor wire and seismic sensors.

“In our neighborhood, we need to protect ourselves from wild beasts,” Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in 2016, in reference to Palestinians and neighboring Arab states, according to the AP. “At the end of the day, as I see it, there will be a fence like this one surrounding Israel in its entirety.”

Hamas made its way through the wall in minutes, using explosive charges to make holes in the barrier, following with bulldozers that made the breaches wider. The AP analyzed satellite images taken Sunday at the Erez border crossing between Gaza and Israel, showing holes as large as 230 feet wide.

The Associated Press contributed.

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