Forged Hamas documents leaked to shape public opinion, report says
Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth reports that leaked Hamas documents that purported to show plans to smuggle Israeli captives out of Gaza were forged.
Speaking to military officials, the Israeli outlet says the documents were leaked in an attempt to influence public opinion and present a view that Hamas and its leader, Yahya Sinwar, were uninterested in a ceasefire deal and attempting to pin the failure to reach an agreement on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The documents were used by the UK's Jewish Chronicle and Germany's Bild.
The Jewish Chronicle claimed that documents seized by the Israeli army in Gaza on 29 August revealed a plan to smuggle captives from Gaza to Egypt across the Philadelphi corridor buffer zone, and then to Iran.
Sinwar, who the Jewish Chronicle said was behind the plan, was also alleged to be planning his escape.
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Yedioth Ahronoth said that Israel's Military Intelligence Directorate was not aware of the document used by the Jewish Chronicle.
“Neither the document, nor the narrative attributed to Sinwar, who suddenly decided to escape, are known to anyone in Israel,” Yedioth Ahronoth wrote, quoting military sources.
Bild reported on a document that was an alleged proposal from a mid-ranking Hamas official.
Yedioth Ahronoth says that while the document exists, Bild used an alleged quote from it that purports to show Hamas' lack of interest in a deal with Israel - remarks that do not exist.
The two reports come after Netanyahu held English and Hebrew news conferences last week in which he insisted that Israel would not withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor - a demilitarised zone on Gaza's border with Egypt - claiming it would allow Hamas to sneak captives out of Gaza.
Yedioth Ahronoth says these fake and forged documents caused "great concern and anger in the security establishment, and it is assumed that it will heighten the tensions between them and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his men".
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