Israel President Isaac Herzog on Monday claimed that Hamas is preparing chemical weapons, citing documents allegedly recovered from Hamas terrorists who were killed in the October 7 attack on southern Israel.
Herzog told UK’s Sky News that the documents originated from an Al Qaeda design for chemical weapons dating back to 2003. Israeli forces claim they found the material on the body of a dead Hamas fighter in Kibbutz Be’eri.
“It’s Al Qaeda material. Official Al Qaeda material. We are dealing with ISIS, Al Qaeda and Hamas… This is how shocking the situation is where we’re looking at the instructions that are given on how to operate and how to create a kind of non-professional chemical weapon with cyanide,” President Herzog said.
The directions included detailed diagrams for a “cyanide dispersion device” and were stored in USBs found on the bodies of Hamas operatives who massacred Kibbutz Be’eri, according to Israeli intelligence reviewed by American news website Axios.
A cable sent by Israel to its embassies read: “This finding points to an intention by Hamas to use chemical weapons as part of its terror attack against civilians.” The cable advised the embassies to inform its diplomats that Hamas had been instructed “to conduct attacks in a similar way that ISIS tried to do.”
Hamas even brought ISIS flags to some of the Kibbutzs attacked during the ambush, according to images released by Israeli Defence Force (IDF) soldiers.
Israel has disclosed other pieces of intelligence reportedly found on the bodies of Hamas agents, including battle plans to “kill as many people as possible” and take hostages as they raided and burned civilian villages.
According to New York Post, some plans reportedly included explicit directions to target schools for kidnapping children en masse and pointed out locations where large groups of people were likely to be found like supermarkets and dining halls.
Israeli officials have repeatedly compared Hamas to groups like ISIS — a terror group known for using horrifying violence while trying to force extremist Islamic law across the world — since its attack on the Jewish homeland two weeks ago, according to New York Post.
News18 had last week reported in detail on the similarities between Hamas and ISIS. Top intelligence sources had told News18 that Hamas not only accepts the ideology of ISIS, but also its brutal manner of killing.
“ISIS and Hamas share the same radical Islamic ideology, are brutal towards human life, use the same extremely violent and barbarous actions to achieve their goals, and are remorseless,” a source said.
In recent years, they added, after attacks on ISIS in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, and other countries, its cadres have taken shelter in Palestine in Hamas-dominated areas. Similarly, Hamas leaders have met ISIS in Yemen and Syria on different occasions, said the sources.
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