Even the day before, the only people anywhere in the world who knew exactly what was planned could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Israeli intelligence services had been deceived, or had failed to comprehend. Those who would take part, the militants of Hamas and some allied groups, did not yet know what they had been training for. To keep the secret, Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in Gaza, had confided in three or four key lieutenants. Only they knew what was to come, and where, and when.
So on that Friday evening, in Rafah and Khan Younis, Tel Aviv and Sderot, in the kibbutzim of southern Israel, in Beit Lahia and Deir al Balah, life went on as usual. Only at 6.29 the next morning, when thousands of rockets launched from Gaza towards Israel across the lightening sky did anyone begin to suspect that this 7 October would be very different. Still, few anticipated the catastrophe that it would bring, nor the year of crisis it would provoke.
