Sinwar cast October 7 as part of a divine plan, senior official says in DC conf.

  Yahya Sinwar cast the October 7 attack as part of a divine plan, a senior Middle Eastern security official said at the Middle East-America Dialogue in Washington, speaking under MEAD’s non-attribution rules.

The official described Sinwar as a believer first and a strategist second, guided by a prophetic timeline pointing toward “independence” around 2028. Drawing on teachings attributed to Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin about a “desert generation,” Sinwar divided modern history into three phases: 1948-1988 as humiliation, 1988-2028 as buildup, and a culminating phase he believed could begin near 2028.

Within that religious frame, the October 7 blueprint was internally labeled “the next promise,” the official said on Tuesday.

The goal was not a limited kidnap-and-escape raid but one meant to instill fear and trigger social collapse inside Israel through extreme brutality. That calculation, the official added, was a strategic error that carried a heavy international price for Hamas and shocked many Palestinians, including Arab Israelis, who did not rally as Sinwar expected.

According to the official, faith-based certainty fed a series of misreads. Sinwar anticipated Israeli deterrence from invading Gaza and expected full Hezbollah entry into the war. He believed a widening rift between Israel and the United States would leave Jerusalem isolated and that the operation would derail normalization with Saudi Arabia.

Instead, Israel invaded, Hezbollah’s involvement was limited, and the Israel-US relationship proved more durable than Sinwar assumed.

Operationally, he treated internal Israeli tensions and flashpoints around the Temple Mount as divine cues to move from vision to action. He exploited a holiday period with thin manpower along the Gaza border after months of IDF focus on the West Bank when selecting the date, the official said.

Leadership shift from Doha to Gaza

Looking ahead, the official assessed that Hamas’s decision-making may shift from Doha to Gaza after recent leadership losses abroad, with a Gaza-based figure who previously oversaw the group’s northern command now driving the military track. Negotiations over hostages and ceasefire terms can continue via other avenues, despite the shake-up, the official said.

Placing Sinwar’s worldview within the region’s broader dynamics, the official urged policymakers to keep their “eyes on the ball,” namely, Iran’s proxy network and missile program, not only its nuclear file. He called October 7 “an Iranian massacre carried out by Palestinian hands” and warned that focusing solely on the nuclear track would invite future conflict.