An Israeli intelligence brief had warned military officials weeks before Oct. 7 that the Palestinian resistance group Hamas was preparing for an attack, according to the Israeli public broadcaster Kan.
The Israeli military's signals intelligence unit drafted the brief in September, less than a month before the Hamas incursion that sparked Israel's brutal war on the Gaza Strip, Kan reported on Monday.
It said the Unit 8200 intelligence document included details of elite Hamas members training for hostage-taking and plans for raids on military positions and Israeli communities in southern Israel.
The brief said they were aiming to take hundreds of hostages, Kan reported.
"The expected number of hostages: 200-250 people," the brief said according to Kan.
The unprecedented Hamas incursion resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Militants also took 251 people hostage, 116 of whom remain in Gaza including 41 the army says are dead.
Israel's genocidal war in response has killed at least 37,347 people in the Gaza Strip, mostly women and children, according to the territory's Health Ministry.
According to Kan, citing unnamed security officials, the brief was known to intelligence officials in the military's Gaza Division and Southern Command.
Israeli politicians have rebuffed calls for a thorough investigation into intelligence failures surrounding the incursion and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted any official probe should wait until after the war, now in its ninth month.
The Israeli military however told AFP it was "investigating the events" of Oct. 7, with a probe being "actively carried out" and would later be made public.
