The schism had begun; "The plan was not to kill civilians. What was our real goal?"

The schism had begun; "The plan was not to kill civilians. What was our real goal?"

In an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, the leader of a battalion of 400 Hamas terrorists claimed that the initial plan was to kill Israeli soldiers and take some of them hostage.

But, he said, Hamas political leaders changed orders at the last minute, leading to the savage rape, torture and murder of more than 1,400 children, women and men, and hundreds of Israelis taken to Gaza as hostages.

"I am one of the planners (of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel) and we didn't expect it to go like this," he said, speaking via the encrypted Telegram app last week.

"Our leadership told our youth: go, do whatever you want, take whatever you want... You can see and witness that we killed babies... Our going there to civilian areas, taking 250 hostages, was not planned. They are civilians. Our plan was to take a few military hostages in exchange for our prisoners," said the Hamas member, who was given the code name Abu Mohammed.

He then accused Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar of behaving like a "street fighter," adding that the Hamas leadership that ordered its terrorists to "do whatever they want" do not live in Gaza and face Israeli retaliation.

"Our reason for this announcement is that we want to raise our voice in the world. My dear Gaza is under bombardment. The problem is our leadership."

He also claims that Hamas military commanders in Gaza are effectively cut off from political leadership and now rely on messengers as in "olden times".

"We don't know in which direction to go further. We don't know which way to go," he said, claiming that several other Hamas commanders are now questioning the group's leadership.

The morning paper, which carried part of his statement, recalled the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, when Hamas fired a barrage of rockets from Gaza and sent fighters across the border, killing 1,400 people and taking about 240 hostages.

More than 270 bodies, mostly young people, were strewn across the music festival venue in a kibbutz in the Negev desert after Hamas gunmen flew over the border in paragliders and fired indiscriminately into the crowd.

In a nearby kibbutz in southern Israel, Hamas terrorists massacred at least 40 babies and young children, before beheading some of them and shooting their families.