‘Nobody got the memo’: IDF claims Yahya Sinwar’s solo gamble derailed Iran’s regional war plan

Fresh military assessments in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran have revealed how years of preparations by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) against Israel, commonly known as the axis of resistance, got derailed when Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar decided to move ahead first on October 7, making a tactical mistake that has triggered a prolonged regional war.

Military officials in Tel Aviv told THE WEEK that the IRGC Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, a key architect of the strategy, was aiming to take the war to Israel by building up precision coordination between Hamas, Hezbollah and Iranian operatives in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza and the West Bank, but it was Sinwar who disrupted the years-long Iranian regional strategy by launching the October 7 attack, even before the broader “axis” was prepared to strike Israel.

As the Israeli military eliminated Mohammed Odeh in Gaza, the new leader of the military wing of Hamas and one of the architects of the October 7 massacre, on Tuesday, the focus once again is on the tactics of the ongoing war, which shows the edge the IDF has in the conflict.  The IDF has not taken its eyes off any of the multiple fronts from Gaza to Lebanon and beyond as the regional spillover of threats continues.

Odeh is said to have served as the head of Hamas’s intelligence staff and was appointed about a week ago to replace Ezzedine Al-Haddad, who was eliminated in an IDF strike in the  Gaza Strip two weeks ago .  “Odeh  was responsible for killing , abduction and wounding of many Israeli citizens and soldiers ,” said the office of the prime minister of Israel in a statement.

The fresh strikes on Hamas are part of Israel’s larger strategy to militarily counter the broader Iranian axis, officials said . “The Iranian plan was to launch attacks similar to October 7, just ranging from all different fronts at the same time,” said Lieutenant Ben Cohen, deputy international spokesperson for the IDF.

The evidence is memos, conversations, movements, logistics sharing going on for years between Hamas, Hezbollah and other armed groups supported by Iran, he said.

“Israeli intelligence has tracked years of coordination and planning between Hamas, Hezbollah and Iranian operatives, and is in possession of material evidence, including behind-the-scenes conversations leading up to this plan,” said a senior security official .

According  to the Israeli assessment, it was Sinwar who chose to launch the October 7 attack before the wider network was fully mobilised. “At the end of the day, on October 7, Sinwar made a decision to launch that attack,” the official said. “Nobody really got the memo that they were supposed to go together with him.”

The result was that Hamas ended up disrupting Iran’s broader strategy. Therefore, even though the October 7 attack itself was devastating- killing thousands of Israelis and triggering the prolonged conflict - officials concede this misstep by Hamas gave Israel an edge.
The IDF, instead of facing simultaneous attacks from every direction , was able to sequentially focus military pressure on Hamas in Gaza ,  Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iranian-linked networks elsewhere across the region.

A case in point is the killing of Saeed Izadi, described as a senior commander coordinating between Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, by Israel last year. The official pointed  to the subsequent killing of several prominent senior figures across the Iranian-backed network as evidence that the strategy had backfired. “When you look at it in hindsight, it ( Iranian plan) sort of went in the opposite direction,” the official said .

Since then, Yahya Sinwar has been eliminated, alongside him his brother Mohammed Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and other high-ranking Hamas leadership. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was supposed to be part of the plan, was also eliminated alongside his replacement.

At the same time, the killing of Iranian commanders and other leaders linked to Tehran-backed groups during the course of the war also proved how the Iranian strategy was turned on its head. “Other high-ranking leadership in the Iranian terrorist proxies have been eliminated throughout the war, as Israel continues to protect its civilians,” said a senior IDF official .

Israeli officials argue that the broader terrorist network was built over the years under Iranian guidance, with coordination between various armed groups despite ideological differences. “We all know the qualms between the different armed groups in the region, but somehow the axis was able to unite on one issue - destroying Israel,” the official said.  “The original strategy envisioned coordinated rocket barrages, UAV attacks and infiltrations unfolding simultaneously from multiple borders.”

While the original plan against Israel might not have been executed in the same manner, officials here insist they do not believe the threat has disappeared. Hezbollah, they argued, has been significantly weakened but still retains operational capability and infrastructure in southern Lebanon.

“Has Hezbollah been significantly degraded since Operation Northern Arrows? One hundred per cent,” the spokesperson said. “But do they still have operational capabilities? Yes.”

IDF officials also link Hezbollah’s weakening to the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria,  which Israel believes disrupted Iranian weapons supply routes into Lebanon. “You had a regime change in Syria. It cut off a lot of their ability to transfer weapons from Iran through Iraq to Syria and into Lebanon,” he said.

Israeli officials also defend the continuing military operations during the ceasefire period, arguing that Hezbollah never truly considered itself bound by the agreement. “You have a terrorist organisation that doesn’t even respect the ceasefire in the first place,” the official said.

According to the spokesperson, Israel now sees preventing any future version of that coordinated regional plan as a strategic priority. “If we knew they had that plan,” he said, “now we have to make sure that that plan won’t be able to exist.”