Israel just warned Hamas could attack before the election
1 hour ago · 6 October 2026Share
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participates in an expanded bilateral meeting at the White House on March 25, 2019. File photo. The White House from Washington, DC · Public domain
He says Hamas is weak. And he says Hamas is about to attack.
Both, in the same breath.
It happened a few hours ago, in Jerusalem. Netanyahu says quote "Precisely because Hamas is so weak, it will try to challenge us."
He also says Israel will stop it. And if not, he says Israel will respond with what he called tremendous force.
So weak enough to lose. Strong enough to strike. Israel's own Prime Minister just said both.
And he's not the only one warning right now.
A day before this, Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir, the head of Israel's army, told the security cabinet that this is a particularly sensitive moment. Why? The election lands right next to the third anniversary of the October 7 attack.
David Zini runs Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security service. He told ministers Hamas might try to kidnap Israeli soldiers around election time.
And Israel Katz, the Defence Minister, has ordered the military to raise its readiness in Gaza. He says there's intelligence that Hamas wants to hit Israeli troops around the anniversary. Katz says if that happens, Hamas and the people of Gaza will pay what he called a heavy price, beyond all proportion.
Three of Israel's top security figures. One week. Same alarm.
But here's the contradiction underneath all of it.
Netanyahu's government keeps saying it's close to wiping Hamas out. In this same Cabinet meeting, he said Israel has killed 4,000 of what he called the 6,000 monsters who crossed the border on October 7, 2023. He says none of the rest have immunity.
Maj. Gen. Shlomi Binder runs Israeli military intelligence. Two days ago he told the security cabinet the same thing. Of the 6,000 who crossed that day, 4,000 are dead. 2,000 are still out there.
But that number only covers the people who physically crossed the border on one day in 2023.
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Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data of the Gaza Strip. File photo. Pierre Markuse from Hamm, Germany · CC BY 2.0
It is not the size of Hamas today.
And here's what the size of Hamas today actually looks like. Al-Monitor reported today that Israeli intelligence now estimates Hamas at around 30,000 armed fighters. That's roughly what Hamas had before October 7, 2023 happened in the first place.
A separate report from Channel 12, about a week earlier, put the number between 25,000 and 30,000.
So after three years of war, Hamas's fighting strength has not really dropped.
And this isn't even the first time Netanyahu has said this. He said almost the exact same thing on 29 September, at Tel Nof Air Force Base. Israel had signs, he said then, that enemies might attack before the election.
After that warning, Yair Lapid, an opposition leader, demanded an urgent security briefing.
Gadi Eisenkot used to run the Israeli army. Now he leads the Yashar party, and he's one of the people trying to beat Netanyahu in this election. He said opposition leaders need to be briefed, to check the threat quote "is indeed a genuine threat and not a political maneuver".
That's one of Netanyahu's own rivals asking whether this is security, or a campaign tactic.
And when that September warning went out, nobody in the military named a specific plot. No alert levels went up. The same is true this week. No report has named an actual plan.
The Times of Israel's own reporting says Israel Katz is known for provocative remarks, and that they've increased lately, ahead of the election. That's the paper's own read, not something Katz said himself.
Hamas has said nothing publicly in response to any of this.
So two things are true at once right now, and neither cancels the other out.
Israel's top security figures say there's a real risk of an attack timed to the election.
And Israel's own intelligence says Hamas barely shrank in three years of war.
Whether this week's warning is a new, specific threat, or the same standing risk said out loud for a second time in ten days, nobody has settled that yet.
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