Overview

• Israeli officials say a six-page handwritten memo dated Aug. 24, 2022 was recovered in May 2025 from an offline computer in a tunnel complex used by Mohammed Sinwar.
• The document instructs fighters to attack soldiers and civilian communities, to set residential areas ablaze with fuel tankers, and to record violence for broadcast to sow fear.
• Unit 8200 intercepts from Oct. 7 echo the memo’s directives, including orders such as “Start setting homes on fire” and “Burn, burn. I want the whole kibbutz to be in flames.”
• Document examiners cited by Israeli authorities report handwriting in the memo matches known samples from Yahya Sinwar, including a 2018 note to Benjamin Netanyahu and a 1989 statement.
• The IDF released a previously unseen photo of Sinwar’s body from Oct. 17, 2024, and Israel’s Foreign Ministry highlighted a handwritten message casting the massacre as choreography, while a Gazit Institute analysis described the planning as featuring extraordinary brutality.