On Monday, the Israel Defense Forces’ Military Censor revealed that the Hamas terrorist organization employed a series of emojis as a covert signal to orchestrate the horrific cross-border attack on October 7, 2023.
As reported by Israel’s Channel 12, these emojis were discovered on the phones of operatives from Hamas’s elite Nukhba Force, which led the most lethal assault against Jews in a single day since the Holocaust.
The IDF’s investigation revealed that this same emoji sequence had been utilized prior to two unsuccessful large-scale attacks by the Islamist group in September 2022 and April 2023, according to Channel 12.
The emojis served as a cue for the Nukhba members to switch to Israeli SIM cards before their incursion, reported Ynet.
At approximately 2:45 a.m. on October 7, Israeli intelligence detected the activation of numerous Israeli SIM cards within Gaza. However, the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) did not act on this information, according to local media coverage from last year.
This activation wasn’t an isolated incident. A similar event occurred the previous evening, around 9 p.m. on Friday. By Wednesday, October 5, approximately 45 communication devices belonging to Gaza terrorists had also been activated.
An intelligence summary by the Shin Bet southern region sent to a group of intelligence and political officials dismissed the activity.
“Today and yesterday, there were SIMs in certain areas of Gaza.
This is not unusual, since similar tests were carried out by Hamas last year as well,” the summary reportedly stated.
“According to the division and the command [leadership], Hamas has not changed its routine. The information is preliminary and there are routine activities in Hamas. A discussion on the matter will be held by the [IDF] Southern Command Intelligence Officer at 08:30 and by the Southern Command heads at 10:00,” the Shin Bet added.
The anomaly was detected some three hours and 45 minutes before thousands of Gaza terrorists stormed the security fence and murdered around 1,200 people, wounded thousands of others, and took 251 hostages.
