Is it true that the attack from Hamas on the 8th of octber was known by Israel, and Israel let it happen so they could conquer more?

Checked on January 14, 2026
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Executive summary

Available investigative and academic reporting attributes the October 7/8 Hamas assault to a cascade of intelligence and judgment failures — missed warnings, dismissed signals, and institutional assumptions that Hamas was deterred — rather than to a deliberate decision by Israel to allow the attack as a pretext for territorial conquest [1] [2] [3] [4]. Multiple reputable reviews and news organizations examined pre-attack signals and found systemic lapses and ignored indicators, but they do not present credible evidence that Israeli political or military leadership intentionally permitted the massacre to happen in order to seize more land [1] [5] [6] [7].

1. The dominant factual finding: surprise born of failure, not a plotted allowance

Detailed post-event studies and journalistic investigations characterize October 7 as a strategic surprise produced by cumulative intelligence shortcomings — overreliance on technology, misreading Hamas’s intentions, dismissal of low-level warnings, and organizational biases that assumed Hamas was deterred — conclusions drawn by academic analysts and comprehensive reports [1] [2] [3] [4].

2. What specific warnings were reported and how they were handled

Reporting and reviews cite concrete episodes where signals were detected and not amplified: examples include warnings from signals-intelligence personnel and availability of documents or reports that allegedly outlined Hamas’s plans, which were reportedly not acted upon or were deprioritized amid prevailing assumptions about Hamas’s restraint [5] [8] [6]. Analysts emphasize that many warnings lacked precise timing or location, and that some senior officials later acknowledged shortcomings in sharing and interpreting those indicators [1] [6].

3. Investigations’ limit: negligence and error, not evidence of intentional facilitation

Scholars and government summaries focused on “intelligence failings” and political-institutional missteps [1] [7]. None of the publicly available, methodical inquiries cited in the reviewed reporting produced substantiated proof that Israeli leaders knowingly allowed the attack to occur to justify territorial expansion; instead, the dominant narratives point to surprise and miscalculation [1] [7] [2].

4. Why the “let it happen” claim circulates — politics, grief, and rhetorical agendas

Accusations that Israel knowingly permitted the attack feed powerful political and emotional currents: they resonate with audiences predisposed to view Israeli policy as opportunistic, and they are amplified by actors seeking to delegitimize wartime responses or to reframe the conflict’s origins. Reporting itself documents disputes over responsibility, resignations, and bitter domestic recriminations — all of which create fertile ground for conspiratorial readings even when investigations point to failure rather than deliberate malfeasance [4] [9].

5. What investigators and governments actually concluded about external orchestration

U.S. intelligence publicly assessed that Iran did not orchestrate or have foreknowledge of the attack, an official finding that weakens theories of a grand conspiracy involving foreign state actors coordinating with or enabling October 7 — again steering the record toward intelligence failure, not premeditated allowance by Israel [7]. Media and academic accounts similarly treat the event as a failure of anticipation rather than an engineered opening for expansion [1] [5].

6. Bottom line and caveats for readers of competing narratives

The weight of credible, sourced reporting and formal assessments points to a catastrophic intelligence and policy failure that left Israel unprepared for an unprecedented Hamas operation; these sources do not substantiate the claim that Israeli authorities knowingly allowed the attack to proceed to justify territorial conquest [1] [2] [5] [6]. Reporting limits must be acknowledged: the reviewed public record addresses failures and ignored warnings in detail but cannot prove a negative beyond those documents and disclosures — where new, verifiable evidence appears it would require reappraisal of the record [1] [7] [4].

Want to dive deeper?
What specific intelligence warnings about Hamas before October 7 have been publicly documented and by which agencies?
What did official Israeli and international inquiries conclude about responsibility for intelligence and command failures before and on October 7?
How have conspiracy theories about October 7 spread on social media and which groups or actors promoted them?