Police investigation reveals Hamas had not planned to attack music festival: Israeli report

Members of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, take part in a rally marking the 29th anniversary of the creation of the movement on December 16, 2016, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. (File/AFP)
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DUBAI: Hamas militants who attacked a music festival in Israel on Oct. 7 probably did not know in advance about the event and decided to target it on the spot, according to the first police investigation into the incident.

The police report, obtained this week by Israel’s Channel 12, said that Hamas had originally intended to attack nearby Kibbutz Re’im, as well as other villages near the Gaza border.

The police probe, which involved interrogations of captured Hamas members, revealed that the group had not planned to target the event and discovered all about the music festival with drones and from the air as they parachuted into Israel.

And while police found maps of target locations on the bodies of killed Hamas members, none was of the festival site.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which also on the police investigation on Saturday, said that the probe showed that an Israeli military helicopter opened fire on Hamas gunmen, but wounded Israelis at the festival.