Hamas document details explosives and civilian chaos as cover for escape

An internal Hamas document proposed setting off explosives around Gaza shelter centers and creating chaos among displaced civilians to help commanders and operatives escape approaching Israeli forces. The people seeking protection at those sites would become part of the diversion intended to cover the departure of Hamas personnel.

The IDF published the document (opens in a new tab) on 19 October 2026, identifying it as an April 2024 proposal. Its pages describe several ways to interfere with an Israeli operation, from explosives on the approach to smoke and confusion around the shelter itself.

But the connection to escape is made most directly in the passage about the civilians.

The April 2024 Hamas document published by the IDF on 19 October 2026 describes proposed explosives and diversions around Gaza shelter centers. Source: Israel Defense Forces.

Creating the confusion that would help others leave

The document proposes using sound grenades or small explosive devices to disrupt an approaching force’s plans and cause disorder among displaced people. The text then explains the benefit the planners sought: that disorder would weaken Israeli control of the area and allow designated personnel to evacuate.

The same passage instructs that the diversionary devices should not harm displaced people. The proposed advantage still depends on deliberately unsettling civilians at their place of refuge to facilitate a military withdrawal.

The distinction between those two groups runs through the document. It refers separately to displaced people, leadership personnel and other members. The shelter occupants are the people among whom disorder would be created. Commanders and personnel are the intended beneficiaries of the evacuation arrangements.

The IDF said the document demonstrated Hamas’s willingness to endanger Gaza civilians to protect its leadership and operatives. The proposal’s other provisions show how far the preparations would extend around the people sheltering there.

Explosives around shelters and in nearby buildings

One provision calls for explosive devices around the centers to strike approaching Israeli vehicles and disrupt their attack. Another envisages explosions that would distract the force, pull attention away from the main objective and create smoke screens.

The proposal gives those explosions different jobs. A device directed against a vehicle would interfere with its advance. A diversion could draw attention elsewhere while personnel moved away.

Nearby houses were also part of the preparations. The document proposes booby trapping buildings that Israeli troops might occupy, including those overlooking entrances and exits. Devices on anticipated Israeli advance routes would provide warning and delay the approaching force.

The area around a civilian shelter would consequently carry several military functions at once. Its access routes could obstruct an advance. Its buildings could become traps. Explosions and smoke could disrupt the force’s understanding of the scene.

For people who had gone there to find refuge, those preparations would introduce danger into the surrounding space. The instruction against harming them in the diversion passage does not remove the wider risk described by the rest of the proposal.

The evacuation provisions explain what Hamas personnel were supposed to do while those measures disrupted the approaching force.

Preparing an exit while obstructing the approach

The evacuation provisions discuss routes through the boundaries of shelter centers toward withdrawal areas. The document identifies the leadership echelon and personnel as the people those routes would serve.

It also describes the intended value of keeping the routes unknown to the approaching force.

That detail links the obstacles outside the shelter to movement out of it. Warning would give personnel time to react. Delays would slow the Israeli approach. Distraction would pull attention away. The evacuation routes would provide a way to leave during the disruption.

The document’s title calls the proposal a plan for securing shelter centers. These provisions explain the protection being sought for the commanders and personnel who might need to withdraw from them.

Creating disorder among the displaced fitted into that same objective. Their confusion would complicate control of the area while the designated personnel attempted to evacuate.

What the document means by shelter centers

The pages bear the headers of Hamas’s military wing, the Izz al Din al Qassam Brigades, and identify an engineering company within its Northern Brigade.

The Arabic term used for the locations means shelter centers. It can include buildings and facilities accommodating displaced people, rather than only tent camps. References to walls, nearby houses and entrances therefore concern features of the places where civilians were staying and the areas around them.

An April 2024 plan made public in October 2026

A handwritten notation on one page reads 29 April 2024, within the month identified by the IDF. The closing instructions call for discussion with battalion command and refer to brigade approval before the complete concept is supplied.

The released pages set out proposed measures. Their public release does not establish whether those measures were subsequently implemented.

Their stated purpose is nevertheless clear. The document describes how to disrupt the force coming toward a shelter area, while preparing a departure for commanders and personnel already there. In its passage on the displaced, even civilian disorder is given a place in that effort to get them out.