Hamas trained a mile from Israel's heavily fortified border

Updated: Today, 10:45Today, 09:48abroad _

It was a complete surprise attack and yet Hamas had been preparing for a long time. This is evident from various images showing how Hamas practices in a replica Israeli city.

According to a CNN analysis, the training camp was very close to the pedestrian crossing between Gaza and Israel, the place where Hamas was also able to enter Israel last weekend. Another video, taken just over a year ago, also shows Hamas militants conducting paraglider exercises. The same method that was applied on Saturday, October 7. Then Hamas also invaded Israel. According to CNN, Hamas is said to have trained for that attack in at least six places in Gaza.

Two of the sites, including the barren training camp seen in the two-year-old video, were about a mile from the most fortified and patrolled part of the Gaza-Israel border. Of the remaining locations, one is in central Gaza and three others are in the far south of Gaza.

According to CNN, satellite images show that no offensive Israeli military action was taken against any of the six identified locations. According to the satellite images, some areas have been converted from agricultural land to a barren area for training in the past two years.

There were already many questions surrounding Israel's intelligence services and how the country with the most ingenious military equipment could miss such an attack. That Hamas could train so openly, in full view of Israel, raises even more questions.

When CNN asked the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for comment, international spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus that the findings were “nothing new.” He added that Hamas “had many training areas” and that the Israeli army had “hit many training areas over the years in the various rounds of escalation.”

Conricus also said that Hamas made the facilities look “civilian.” According to CNN, five of the locations - the sixth is an airstrip - have no civilian characteristics. They are all surrounded by huge earthen berms, which are taller than the buildings in the camps. The buildings - most of them without a roof - are almost all made of concrete blocks and cement. Some camps have gates and fences, while others have curbs but no paved roads.

In three of the training camps they even recreated Israeli tanks consisting of what looks like a large shell around a truck. Fighters practice an attack on it with RPGs and other explosives.

Ali Baraka, the head of the Lebanon-based Hamas National Relations Abroad, told RT Arabic after Saturday's attack that the terror organization had been planning the attack for two years.