IDF Reports Hamas Terrorists Carried Al Qaeda Recipe to Make Chemical Weapons
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported a USB flash drive found on the body of a Hamas terrorist contained documents with instructions on how to make cyanide-based chemical weapons, according to reports.
The small thumb drive was found among the possessions of a terrorist who participated in the Oct. 7 bloody massacre in Kibbutz Be'er where reportedly more than 100 Israelis were murdered.
In an exclusive interview with British broadcaster Sky News, Israeli President Isaac Herzog showed what he said was part of the information discovered by the IDF and said the plans were found on a USB drive discovered on the dead Hamas terrorist.
Several media outlets reported they were unable to verify the Israeli claim. However, Israeli officials have previously said they wouldn't share intelligence with their allies unless they thought it was true, according to Axios.
Israeli intelligence said the documents found on the USB are from a known 2003 al Qaeda manual, the outlet reported.
The information contained in the documents has been declassified, and listed the ingredients necessary to make a chemical explosive device, Sky News reported.
"It's al Qaeda material. Official al Qaeda material. We are dealing with ISIS, al Qaeda and Hamas," Herzog told the outlet. "This is what we are dealing with. And in this material, there were instructions how to produce chemical weapons."
"This is how shocking the situation is where we're looking at the instructions that are given on how to operate and how to create a kind of non-professional chemical weapon with cyanide," he continued.
The Israeli president did not suggest the terrorists were carrying the necessary parts to build such a weapon.
Sky News said it sent copies of the recovered documents to a British chemical weapons expert who concluded the information does show the ingredients needed to build a dependable chemical weapon.
"Al Qaeda spent a lot of time and effort developing a chemical weapon based on cyanide," Hamish de Bretton Gordon, former head of the UK military's Chemical, Biological and Nuclear Weapons regiment told the outlet.
"Cyanide is a blood agent and AQ developed a chemical weapon using these types of chemicals," Gordon said.
It is not known from the information gleaned from the USB thumb drive if Hamas had any deliberate or working plan to make some type of quick and simple chemical weapons, Axios reported. There was also no intelligence available on whether the terror organization had tried to make them.
Meanwhile, last Thursday, Israel's Foreign Ministry sent a classified cable to Israeli embassies worldwide, stating, "This finding points to an intention by Hamas to use chemical weapons as part of its terror attack against civilians," the outlet reported. Diplomats were also instructed to share the intelligence with their host governments, and not to release it publicly.
The cable also said the terrorists were instructed "to conduct attacks in a similar way that ISIS tried to do."
As CBN News has reported, Israeli leaders have compared Hamas to ISIS and found an ISIS flag in a kibbutz taken over by Hamas terrorists.
Hamas brought ISIS flags to massacre Israeli children, women and men.
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 12, 2023
Hamas is a genocidal terrorist organization.
Hamas is worse than ISIS pic.twitter.com/j3BagCudor
Benny Gantz, a former IDF Chief of Staff, and head of the National Unity Party has said the newly formed unity government is ready to "wipe this thing called Hamas off the face of the Earth."
Israeli officials have publicly and privately shared a trove of documents the IDF found on dead Hamas terrorists since Oct. 7, according to Axios. Several of the documents were listed by Hamas as "Top Secret" and included plans to attack Israeli villages and military bases near the Gaza border, and included orders to kill as many people as possible and to take hostages, the outlet reported.
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