While there are several monuments and exhibits dedicated to Hamas’s October 7 invasion of southern Israel, the Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center (IICC) recently opened a new one with authentic items belonging to Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar, from invasion plans which he wrote by hand, to his actual vest, shoes, and other clothes.
The IICC is unique because it is run by former top officials from IDF intelligence, the Mossad, and the Shin Bet and has special and direct access to intelligence from those agencies at various times, in addition to its high-level open source research.
Already, IICC officials told The Jerusalem Post on a tour of the exhibits on Wednesday that since October 7, IDF intelligence has intercepted and is in the process of analyzing over one million physical Hamas internal documents as well as petabytes (quadrillion bytes) of data.
According to IICC CEO and Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yuval Halamish, his intelligence center has been hard at work analyzing waves of those documents that they receive from IDF intelligence, and will likely invest years in the endeavor.
IICC Amit Terrorism and Intelligence Research Institute Head Col. (res.) Shlomo Mofaz noted that his center has already issued many reports on these Hamas documents.
Reports shed light on Hamas members, new operatives, and recruits
One such report described from internal Hamas documents how the terror group restored its training of new “recruits” in Shejaia in northern Gaza between January and March 2025, during a temporary ceasefire.
The report details what training measures were taken, names of trainees, how they scored on the shooting range, and who passed the various combat courses and who failed, along with religious brainwashing processes.
Part of the IICC exhibit presents physical items that the Hamas Nukhba invaders held, such as their infamously precise maps of each Jewish village they were designated to attack.
IICC tour guides noted that Hamas’s intelligence was at an extremely high level regarding exactly where the most challenging security spots would be in each village, to be able to neutralize them effectively.
Also, part of the exhibit was a special edition of the Quran, which Hamas produced for the attack, with a front picture of the al-Aqsa Mosque in the theme of the attack being declared "the al-Aqsa Flood."
Further, the exhibit had a book of fatwas or Islamic sharia rulings, including from Qatari Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, justifying the mass murder of unarmed Israeli women and children.
According to the fatwas, all Israelis are part of a militaristic cult, with a service in the IDF requirement, making them all military targets in the present or in the future.
The Sinwar documents include his August 2022 directive for the invasion in writing, connecting to the Walls of Jericho plan, which mid-level IDF intelligence officials knew about but did not pass on to senior levels, considering it a fantasy.
There is a special item listing photos and information about certain Gaza “journalists” whom the IDF intelligence later proved from Hamas’s internal documents had worked for the terror group.
Moreover, there is a separate exhibit item highlighting UNRWA workers who were likewise dual-hat operatives for Hamas, many of whom took part in the October 7 atrocities.
Hamas weapons, including some likely supplied by Egypt, on display
Another series of items at the exhibit are Hamas weapons from the invasion, including those manufactured by Iran, Russia, North Korea, Egypt, China, and self-made weapons.
The presumption is that the Egyptian weapons were either stolen or provided to Hamas from 2012 to 2013, when Muslim Brotherhood political leader Mohamed Morsi was Egypt’s president.
According to the IDF, Egypt has cooperated with Israel against Hamas, even if with varied levels of commitment, before 2012 and since Morsi was deposed in 2013.
It is unclear how weapons from some of the other countries reached Hamas, although Iran has directly and proudly provided weapons for years.
Yet another set of exhibits includes physical original examples of Hamas trucks or motorcycles used to invade Israel – over 150 trucks and over 300 motorcycles were used – as well as several mauled and bullet-hole-ridden cars from the Supernova music festival.
One arrives at the “Nova festival cars” by walking through a dark, extended tunnel, with haunting voices and noises playing as you cross over.
A large part of the exhibits focuses on Israeli suffering from the attacks.
Photos of all 1,224 Israeli victims of Hamas from October 7 are presented on an extended corridor in alphabetical order.
There are several different videos, each dealing with different aspects of the slaughter.
For example, one focuses on the Hamas invasion in the big picture, one on the hostages, one documenting how first responders found Israeli bodies mutilated and signs of rape, and another, more hopeful, is of a performance of the song “Habayita,” meaning “Come home,” for the Israeli hostages.
There is also a hopeful exhibit to record the stories of many Israeli heroes of that day, who saved countless additional potential victims.
The start of the exhibit hosts an extended, detailed painting portraying well-known Israeli figures, such as the Bibas children, on the morning of October 7, just prior to the invasion.
The IICC exhibits do not delve in depth into who was at fault for failing to prevent the October 7 failure, with very little footage regarding Israeli political officials, and only one video of former IDF chief Herzi Halevi giving a speech in which he took responsibility for the IDF’s part in the failure.
The focus in terms of substance is on Hamas’s strategy, plans, and physical representations of its tactics, and an opening video notes how completely Hamas surprised Israeli border soldiers. It does not, however, set as a goal to discuss the chaotic and critical several hours after that in which insufficient reinforcements arrived at the front.
All written items on the tour are translated from Hebrew into English, and all videos have English subtitles available.
Tours of the October 7 exhibits are targeted at persons over the age of 18 due to the extreme sensitivity and graphic nature of multiple exhibits.
Visitors must contact the center in advance to arrange tours. Small groups need to reserve a few days in advance, with larger groups requiring more advance notice.
Besides the exhibit and special publications related to the October 7 invasion, the Amit Center regularly publishes intelligence updates regarding Palestinian terror, Hezbollah, and Iran at terrorism-info.org.il
The center can be reached at (03) 547-2321, (03) 549-7019, or
mlmhida@intelligence.org.il
Most tours are given in Hebrew or English, but tours can also be scheduled in advance in Spanish or French.