L-R: Former Operations Directorate chief Maj. Gen. Oded Basiuk, former Southern Command chief Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, and Gaza Division chief Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram stand over the body of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in southern Gaza’s Rafah on Oct. 17, 2024. The image was published by the army on Oct. 16, 2025. Photo: IDF.

Law enforcement in Athens on Thursday restricted pro-Hamas activists from staging demonstrations in the Greek capital to memorialize Yahya Sinwar — the architect behind Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel — who was killed on Oct. 16, 2024, by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Police stated that the planned events presented safety concerns and a significant risk. Organizers reportedly included Gather for Gaza, Stand with Palestine, and the Turkish People’s Front. The ban ran from 5:00 pm on Thursday through 6:00 am on Friday. It covered the city’s Syntagma Square and the inner-city area.

The IDF commemorated the anniversary of Sinwar’s killing by releasing a new image of the terrorist mastermind’s body. It features former Southern Command chief Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, former Operations Directorate chief Maj. Gen. Oded Basiuk, and Gaza Division chief Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram standing above the Hamas leader’s corpse on Oct. 17, 2024.

The IDF posted on X on Thursday, “One year since Yahya Sinwar’s elimination. The man who began the war isn’t alive to see it end.”

On Oct. 11, The New York Times reported the discovery of an August 2022 handwritten memo by Sinwar seen as a planning document for the following year’s Oct. 7 attack, instructing “Two or three operations, in which an entire neighborhood, kibbutz, or something similar will be burned, must be prepared.”

On Tuesday, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) published further translations from the document its author had titled “Necessary Clarifications.”

Sinwar used the religious language “In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful” and “Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds.” He described eight key points which MEMRI characterized as developing pre-stage preparations, using psychological warfare through imagery, deploying “horrifying events,” opening “gates” for infiltration, facilitating a flow of forces, coordinating with other factions, designating identification signals, and expanding the offensive.

Before the attack, Sinwar told his fighters to “engage in intensive movements weeks before any action that the enemy deems routine, providing cover for the larger movement.”

Sinwar also directed the use of creating terrifying media both to horrify Israelis and to inspire Palestinians. He wrote that he wanted both “images that spark feelings of euphoria, madness, and excitement among our people” while also fueling “terror and panic among the enemy.”

Sinwar instructed that he wanted Hamas fighters to engage in “trampling on the heads of soldiers and shooting them at point-blank range, slaughtering some with knives, blowing up tanks, and capturing prisoners kneeling with their hands on their heads.” He called for his followers to “deliberately create these events, film them, and broadcast the images as quickly as possible.”

The document continued to mix both calls for carnage with theological references. Sinwar cited the Quranic verse “So Allah came to them from where they did not expect and cast terror into their hearts” in the context of creating “flaming car bombs exploding in a location or building, causing terrifying destruction, a heart-rending sound, and a massive fire.”

Sinwar also named what he called “gates” as the entry to attack, identifying “one in the north (Erez Gate), one east of Gaza (Nahal Oz), and a third opposite the central one.” He called for bulldozers to first “advance to open the gates, remove obstacles, and level the roads” and then after the attack had begun to take out “all possible wire, barriers, barricades, earthworks, and the like.”

Foreseeing where he would direct his forces, Sinwar wrote that “the Northern Brigade’s objectives must be primarily directed toward the coastal strip, the Gaza Brigade’s objectives toward the northeast … the Rafah Brigade toward the southeast.” He also planned coordinating with other factions, instructing that brigade commanders should contact leaders of other groups to “muster their forces as quickly as possible to integrate them into the operational plan” which would involve the third and fourth waves of the attack.

Sinwar also suggested signals to avoid friendly fire, such as “a specific ribbon on [the] right arm” and with a codename like “The Jerusalem Army.”

The document captured Sinwar’s optimism at the potential for the strikes to grow. He called for his commanders to “expand the attack to the greatest possible extent” and to anticipate support from “movements of our people inside Israel, in Jerusalem, and the West Bank, and [the Lebanese terrorist group] Hezbollah’s intervention.”

Sinwar sought to capture “centers of power, command, and control” and aimed “to impose the most significant facts on the ground, making the possibility of a counterattack impossible.”