The Hamas plan to attack Israel on October 7th was ambitious and had a goal of linking up with terrorists in the West Bank.

 

Map showing the ambitions of the October 7th attack. The Daily Mail. 

The Hamas plan to attack Israel on October 7th were even more ambitious and had a goal of linking up with terrorists in the West Bank. The Daily Mail. Militants were equipped with weapons, thermobaric grenades and enough food to last several days. The attacks were supposed to make it all the way to the West Bank, but the attack sputtered out in Ofakim, which is halfway between Gaza and the West Bank. Hamas had been planning the attack for over year and conducted a large number of reconnaissance missions using drones. 

My Comment:

When the attack occurred I was honestly impressed that Hamas was able to accomplish what they were able to do. They managed a massive surprise attack, inflicted heavy casualties on local military units and were able to kill and capture a large number of civilians. And they did that against a much stronger and technologically advanced enemy. 

But if these reports are true then perhaps Hamas considers the attack a failure. They were clearly very ambitious and wanted to link up with local terror groups in the West Bank. They didn't really get close, with their furthest advance being only halfway there. 

Part of this was due to their focus on attacking and capturing civilians. This slowed down their attack and likely prevented their major goal of linking up with the West Bank. However, I think taking hostages was the main goal of the Hamas attack and linking up with the West Bank was a secondary objective. 

Regardless, reaching the West Bank was probably unrealistic in the first place. The further they got into Israel the stronger resistance was going to be and given that much of the Israeli military was deployed near the West Bank they probably would have never accomplished their goal. On the other hand, they did have surprise. 

As for the attack, I think it was a Pyrrhic victory for Hamas. They appear to be losing the war and losing it badly. Though they are winning the propaganda war, at least internationally, they have few allies and Israel is pushing them very hard. It seems the local Arab states are just looking the other way this time, looking like they just want to go through the motions and haven't really abandoned the normalization process with Israel . And the hostages they took? They don't seem to have been much use as Israel is just attacking, not negotiating.