- A former UK intel chief said Hamas "laid a trap" for Israel.
- He said the militant group was provoking Israel to invade Gaza.
Attacks by the Hamas militant group were likely a ploy to lure Israel into a costly ground invasion of Gaza, the former head of Britain's MI6 spy agency said.
Alex Younger, who served as the head of the UK's foreign intelligence service from 2014 to 2020, gave his comments in an interview on the BBC's "The Today Podcast."
It came after Hamas fighters stormed into Israel and massacred whole villages — Israel has said more than 1,000 people were killed, including children and the elderly.
He said: "I absolutely understand and endorse Israel's right to defend themselves in the circumstances, and indeed to restore the credibility of those defenses, so that that sense of psychological safety can be restored to the people."
"But here's the thing, you shouldn't do what your enemy wants you to do," said Younger.
Israel launched waves of airstrikes on Gaza in the wake of the attacks, killing hundreds. It has massed troops on the border of the Gaza Strip and pledged to destroy Hamas in its entirety, but has yet to move in its troops.
"And it's really obvious now that Hamas are essentially laying a trap for Israel," said Younger.
"And [it] will be well pleased if Israel commits itself to an open-ended, full-scale ground invasion of Gaza because of the scale and intensity of conflict that that would entail, and the loss of innocent life that would inevitably follow and the radicalization that would engender, and the extent to which will put Israel's allies and partners in the region in an impossible position."
He said Hamas was likely surprised by how successful its mission had been, with militants successfully evading Israeli surveillance and breaking through Israel's high-tech border security before advancing around 30 kilometres into Israel.
A senior Hamas official said much the same thing.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to destroy Hamas in the wake of the attacks. But analysts say that in invading Gaza, the densely populated region the militant group has governed since 2007, the IDF would face fierce resistance from Hamas, which is embedded in a network of underground tunnels and bases. Such an attack would likely result in the loss of thousands of civilian lives.
There are fears the conflict could expand if Israel invades Gaza, and Iran-backed militia Hezbollah could launch attacks on Israel from Lebanon.