Hamas terrorists breached the border with Israel by land, sea and air, using motorized paragliders as part of their insertion. Hamas released video of its paragliding unit training for the assault.
The gliders use a single canopy, or airfoil, in combination with a small motor with enough power to get one person airborne.
The paragliders usually travel between 15 and 50 miles per hour, even with a motor. Depending on how they are calibrated, radars and other air defense systems might not pick up paragliders or display them on readout screens.
That is one possible explanation as to how Hamas was able to get gliders into Israeli territory at the start of the attack, but it is not known for certain.
The Israeli government and defense forces have not said much about the intelligence failures leading up to the attack. Egypt said it warned Israel ahead of time that something big was coming from Gaza, however Israel is denying it received such reports.
The Israel Defense Forces were aware of Hamas’ growing capability with paragliders. An IDF post from May 2021 confirmed the success of a strike on a Hamas operative in Gaza. The strike was ordered because the house contained weapons and equipment of the Hamas paragliding unit.
Now, whether Israel was warned about the attacks on Oct. 7 or not, the fact remains that Hamas used paragliders to bring about the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.