DUBAI, October 16. /TASS/. The radical Palestinian movement Hamas has been practicing Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and an attack on Israel for four years, the Iranian agency Tasnim said.
The report reads the Hamas attack on Israel marked "the beginning of a new era" in the confrontation between the two sides, as Palestinian militants showed a high degree of preparedness as well as the effectiveness of their intelligence. Hamas has held annual drills since 2020 in which it practiced various attack scenarios.
Tasnim notes that the movement has always announced the drills publicly. In this way it established a unified command center, practiced joint actions by different groups, and improved combat readiness. The fighters also practiced mobilization of troops, urban warfare, seizure of enemy settlements and military facilities, invasion of coastal areas and landing operations. The fighters paid special attention to the tactics of preventing a possible Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip using mines, tanks, drones, anti-missile systems and other weapons.
Tasnim says that this year's exercise took place just a month before the actual attack. The Israeli authorities did not take it seriously enough or study the Hamas battle strategy properly.
Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7, when Palestinian militants from the Hamas movement attacked Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. Israel has announced a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and carried out strikes on targets inside Lebanon and Syria. Hostilities are in progress on the West Bank.