Other armed groups involved in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack

While the current truce in Gaza has been renewed until dawn on Thursday, on condition that Hamas releases at least 10 Israeli hostages per day, the latter still has to locate many captives who are not in its hands.

According to an investigation by BBC Arabic and BBC Verify, at least five other Palestinian armed groups took part in the Oct. 7 attack by the Islamist movement in Israel, which, according to the Israeli authorities, killed almost 1,200 people and captured 240 hostages.

Fighters from these and other factions had been taking part in military exercises with Hamas since 2020, according to the British channel.

Who are the groups identified to have taken part in the Oct. 7 attacks?

• The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and its al-Quds Brigades. The second largest armed faction in Gaza after Hamas’s Ezzeddine al-Qassam Brigades, the organization is also listed as a “terrorist organization” by the United States, the European Union, Israel and other Western countries. Founded in the early 1980s, the Sunni militant group, inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood, aims to establish an Islamist Palestinian state committed to the destruction of Israel. The PIJ differs from Hamas on some of the strategies to be adopted to this end, notably rejecting any political involvement. The PIJ is also supported, particularly financially, by Iran, whose ideology it borrows from the 1979 Islamic revolution. The al-Quds Brigades also cooperate with the armed branches of Fatah and Hamas in the West Bank, where they are particularly present in Nablus and Jenin, as well as in southern Lebanon. The estimated number of its fighters is at least 1,000.

• The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and its Ali Abu Mustafa Brigades. Also classified as a “terrorist organization” in the US and Europe in particular, this Marxist-Leninist group is present in both Gaza and the West Bank, where it is the second party after Fatah within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). In decline since the end of the USSR, which was its main supporter, the group nevertheless represents the main opposition to Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank, rejecting security collaboration with Israel and the two-state solution, and calling for an armed struggle to create a Palestinian state stretching over all Israeli territory. The name of the PFLP’s armed wing pays tribute to the party’s secretary general, assassinated in 2001 by Israeli forces. The Ali Abu Mustafa Brigades responded by assassinating the Israeli agriculture minister a few months later, in their most notable feat of arms.

• The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Present in both the occupied territories and Gaza, these brigades emerged during the second intifada as a network of armed groups associated with Fatah, although the party does not officially recognise the movement as its armed wing. President Mahmoud Abbas’s party runs the Palestinian Authority (PA), which controls the West Bank, but was forcibly expelled from the coastal enclave after the 2006 elections, in which Hamas won. The al-Aqsa Brigades are also divided between their various cells. While many early commanders were killed or imprisoned by Israel, others have been integrated into the PA’s security apparatus, which led a security campaign against the group in the late 2000s, while others have created splinter groups, mainly active in Gaza.

• The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and its Omar al-Qassem forces (also known as the National Resistance Brigades). Members of these forces operate in Gaza, where they have taken part in battles against the Israeli army in the past. The party itself was formed following a split in the PFLP in 1969. Inspired by Marxism-Leninism, the party criticized the Oslo Accords, although it was the first PLO faction to support the two-state solution. While its founder lives in Syria, the party reportedly receives substantial support from Damascus.

• The Palestinian Mujahideen Movement and its Mujahideen Brigades. Little known and relatively small in terms of numbers, and political and military weight, these forces operate mainly in Gaza, and in Jenin (West Bank), in cooperation with the al-Quds Brigades.

Coordination and training

Hamas had already formally collaborated with PIJ before 2018. But it was this year that the group in charge of Gaza set up a joint operations room to coordinate with 10 other armed factions and conduct military exercises.

The Islamist movement’s main aim was to unite its forces while consolidating its position in the armed resistance to Israel in the enclave.

On Dec. 29, 2020, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, exiled between Qatar and Turkey, said that the first annual exercise in a series of four, codenamed Strong Pillar, sent “a strong message and a sign of unity.”

While the group claimed that all were equal partners, it nevertheless remained in charge of planning.

The BBC has identified 10 groups that took part in these military simulations, the forerunners of the bloody attack in Israel on Oct.7, from the various combatants’ headbands seen on images posted on Telegram.

According to the videos available, the exercises began with a rocket launch, before a group of men attacked a model tank marked with an Israeli flag, capturing a crew member and taking him prisoner, while storming nearby buildings.

The fighters also trained on taking hostages and neutralizing Israeli defenses on a replica of a military base. These tactics were all used during the surprise triple incursion into Israel nearly two months ago, although the last drill had taken place just 25 days before.

Five of the groups present during the training claimed to have taken part in the Oct. 7 attacks, with videos to back up their claims, while three others published written statements to that effect on Telegram.

The PIJ, the Mujahedin Brigades and the al-Nasser Salah ad-Din Brigades all claimed to have taken hostages on that day.

While Hamas negotiated on Monday a two-day extension to the truce with Israel, it must now locate the hostages that are in the hands of other armed factions in order to honor its part of the deal in exchanging Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners. At least 10 Israelis must be released from the Gaza Strip every day, leading to the release of three Palestinian prisoners per head.

This article was also published in French.