Sinwar memo exposes Hamas leader’s direct order to target and kill Israeli civilians

The New York Times on Saturday reported that a special Israeli military unit discovered a digitalized copy of Yahya Sinwar’s handwritten memo where the late Hamas leader explicitly ordered the terror group’s operatives to attack and murder Israeli civilians during the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. The copy of the Hamas leader’s six-page memo was reportedly discovered on a computer in a subterranean complex used by Sinwar’s younger brother Mohammed Sinwar. 

The letter, which is dated August 24, 2022, and is written in Arabic, calls on Hamas terrorists to broadcasts the atrocities during the massacre. 

“It needs to be affirmed to the unit commanders to undertake these actions intentionally, film them, and broadcast images of them as fast as possible,” Sinwar’s letter states. By filming and broadcasting the massacre, Sinwar wanted to spread fear and instability in the Jewish state. 

Furthermore, Hamas also wanted to broadcast the atrocities to the entire world, which they did in real time during the invasion and assault on civilians in southern Israel. Other Hamas commanders also issued instructions to document and broadcast the massacre. 

“Document the scenes of horror, now, and broadcast them across TV channels for the whole world to see,” the Hamas commander Abu al-Baraa from Gaza City ordered his operatives in the Kibbutz Sa’ad area, according to a message that Israel intercepted. 

The Hamas commander’s message explicitly called for the genocide of the Jewish people. 

“Slaughter them. End the children of Israel.” 

The discovery of Sinwar’s memo is important because Hamas leaders have since the Oct. 7 massacre denied that the terror group specifically targeted Israeli civilians with factually inaccurate claims that only military targets were attacked.

The growing phenomenon of denying the Oct. 7 massacre has been compared to Holocaust denial.

In March 2025, the UK released a detailed and groundbreaking report on the Oct. 7 massacre under the leadership of the prominent British historian Andrew Roberts. The purpose of the report was to document the atrocities against Israeli civilians for future generations. 

In his memo, Sinwar ordered his operatives to enter residential Israeli neighborhoods and set the houses on fire “with gasoline or diesel from a tanker.”

“Two or three operations must be planned to burn down an entire neighborhood, kibbutz, or something similar,” Sinwar wrote in his memo. 

Sinwar also ordered Hamas terrorists to commit acts of cruelty against Israeli soldiers. 

“Stomp on the heads of soldiers,” the memo states. It further listed “opening fire on soldiers at point-blank range, slaughtering them with knives, and blowing up tanks” as actions that Hamas’ Nukhba terrorists should undertake during the attack. 

The Israeli military later intercepted a message from a Hamas commander, which revealed that Hamas terrorists carried out Sinwar’s orders during the Oct. 7 attack. 

Hamas official Abu Muhammed instructed his operatives: “Start setting homes on fire.”

“Burn, burn,” he urged, according to the intercepted messages. “I want the whole kibbutz to be in flames,” he continued. 

Hamas leader Abu al-Abed issued similar instructions to his subordinates during on Oct. 7, 2023. “Set fire to anything."

In another message intercepted by Israel, Hamas officer Abu Muath ordered his operatives to “kill everyone on the road... Kill everyone you encounter.” He also called on taking hostages. 

“Men, take a lot of hostages... Take a lot of hostages,” Muath repeated.

Izzat al-Rishq who heads Hamas’ media office in Qatar has so far refused to comment on the New York Times report on Sinwar’s revealing memo. 

After hiding for a year after the atrocities he ordered, Yahya Sinwar was killed in October 2024 in a firefight with Israeli forces in the southern Gazan town Rafah. Mohammed Sinwar who took over the Hamas leadership in Gaza after his brother’s death, was eliminated in an Israeli aerial strike in May of this year. 

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