Hamas 'abduction manual' states 'hostage-taking' as central aim of Israel attack

The Israeli army discovered manuals on the dead bodies of Hamas terrorists which showed how they were given orders to execute “problematic” hostages and babies were designated as specific targets during the October 7 attack carried out on Israel.

The document clearly states 'hostage-taking' as the attack's central aim, as reported by Western media outlets. In the document, the attackers have been instructed to ration their food and keep the hostages for a long duration in an enclosed location.

“Kill the problematic and those who post a threat. Gather some of the hostages in the area and use them as cannon fodder, ensuring they are clearly visible,” read the document, written in Arabic. The document reveals their plan to attack Kibbutz Kfar Sa’ad, which included sweeping two schools along with a youth centre.

High-level planning

The officials of the Israeli government said that the manuals showed the high level of planning carried out by Hamas in the last few months before the October 7 attack.

“It shows they were very, very task orientated,” said an IDF spokesman Lt Col Peter Lerner, while speaking to The Telegraph. “It wasn’t just haphazardly ‘let’s cross over and kill whoever we walk into’ but rather that we go in, we take, we attack, we abduct, we tie them up… there’s a whole list of things to do,” he added.

As per the hostage-taking manual, the victims had to be gathered in “pre-determined” locations on maps after every terrorist squad had finished “cleansing their operating areas”.

The documents also included maps in which blue circles were drawn around Kfar Sa’ad and three other villages, which also share a border with Gaza, Alumim, Nahal Oz and Kraf Aza. It was in these villages that Hamas killed dozens of Israeli civilians, which included children and babies, and kidnapped many of them.

The killings of men and women were mentioned as the “last resort”, and the terrorists were asked to use “firearms, smoke and stun grenades, indirect threats, electric shocks, violence and terrorism” to maintain order, as per the document.

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An Israeli government official stated that “a family” of documents, which have been recovered from the dead bodies of the terrorists, are being analysed by the IDF and show how they systematically targetted the civilians. “They are constantly lying all the time,” said an IDF source, while speaking to NBC News.

The “abduction manual” has been divided into eight sections and looks like they were preparing Hamas terrorists to hold a siege on hostages present inside Israel, maybe for days.

The document's first section has been labelled as “Gathering” and it gives instructions on how to take hostages. The second section was titled “Isolation and control within the area and around it.”

Disclaimer: WION takes utmost care to accurately and responsibly report ongoing developments on the Israel-Palestine conflict after the Hamas attacks. However, we cannot independently verify the authenticity of all statements, photos and videos.

(With inputs from agencies)

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