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Today’s Episode:

On today’s episode, we are joined by Israeli journalist and Call me Back veteran Ronen Bergman. Ronen recently published a piece for the New York Times titled “A Memo in a Bunker, Intercepted Communications and Hamas’ Oct. 7 Plans,” in which he and his co-author Adam Rasgon discuss a recently uncovered six-page memo from August of 2024, which Israeli officials believe was written by Yayha Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza and main architect of the October 7 massacre. Dan and Ronen discuss how this memo – as well as other documents discovered earlier in the war – shed light onto Hamas’s goals in launching the attack, and whether, in retrospect, they succeeded.

00:00 Introduction

07:23 Sinwar’s memo recently discovered in Gaza

09:45 How Hamas meticulously documented its activity

12:42 How do we know this was written by Sinwar?

13:51 Hamas terrorists ordered to record and broadcast their crimes

20:20 Sinwar’s strategy behind broadcasting October 7

26:03 What Sinwar got right, and what he got wrong

28:53 How Hamas activated support worldwide

33:39 10 Hamas protocols obtained by the IDF in January, 2024

37:25 How Hamas managed to deceive Israel before October 7

38:43 How Hamas chose the date of October 7, 2023

42:47 Collaboration between Hamas in Doha and in Gaza

44:33 Sinwar’s goal of igniting regional war

46:17 Disrupting Saudi normalization and releasing Palestinian prisoners

49:04 Sinwar succeeded at terrifying Israelis

50:46 The next phase in Gaza will determine the outcome of the war

CREDITS:

ILAN BENATAR - Producer & Editor

ADAAM JAMES LEVIN-AREDDY - Executive Producer

MARTIN HUERGO - Sound Editor

MARIANGELES BURGOS - Additional Editing

MAYA RACKOFF - Operations Director

GABE SILVERSTEIN - Research

YUVAL SEMO - Music Composer