Sources Reveal Hamas-Dahlan-Israel Intelligence Channel

Israeli and Palestinian sources close to former Fatah official Mohammed Dahlan have shed light on a communication channel involving messages passed from Hamas to Dahlan, and subsequently to UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to Haaretz newspaper. While details regarding any messages from Dahlan to bin Zayed remain unconfirmed, intelligence information was reportedly transferred in September 2023 from Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar to Soufian Abu Zaida, a senior Fatah official and Dahlan associate described as "coal eyes" by Haaretz. This intelligence was then passed to Dahlan and, shortly after, to Israel's Shin Bet security agency.

A senior Israeli intelligence official stated that the intelligence received by the Shin Bet was neither "warning, nor high-quality, nor operational" and was significantly inferior to intelligence gathered by Israel, thus not prompting action. This Hamas-Dahlan-Shin Bet axis is not new; Abu Zaida has long maintained contact with Hamas official Ghazi Hamad, with whom Netanyahu reportedly initiated a communication channel after the 2014 Gaza War. Abu Zaida also communicates with a senior Shin Bet official, identified as "A," who previously headed the captives and missing persons division. Therefore, the intelligence received from Abu Zaida, based on Sinwar, was not perceived as an unusual event.

The article questions why Sinwar would provide intelligence to Israel, suggesting it was an attempt to create a false impression of willingness to negotiate, similar to his actions before the October 7th attack. Two months prior to passing intelligence to Abu Zaida, Sinwar reportedly sent his deputy, Khalil al-Hayya, to meet with Iranian officials in Beirut to finalize the date for the October 7th massacre. This effort by Sinwar is seen as part of a broader Hamas strategy over two years prior to the war, involving approaches to journalists and former officials to lull Israel into a false sense of security, perhaps by suggesting Sinwar's interest in establishing a civilian rescue front for Gaza.

Hamas also reportedly approached journalists and other figures to open mediation channels for missing persons, all while preparing for the attack. This strategy likely contributed to how Sinwar's messages were perceived in Israel. A senior intelligence official concluded, "In short, this information was not Ashraf Marwan's chemicals," referring to a significant intelligence leak during the Yom Kippur War, adding, "In any case, the conceptualization swallowed all the signs into itself and that killed us all."