Hamas took much greater strides and efforts to learn about the Israeli army. Look at next post for reference.
Hamas gathered sensitive information on IDF movements, bases and weaponry from IDF soldiers’ social media accounts—and used that information to train for and execute the October 7 massacre. That’s according to a disturbing scoop by
@Doron_Kadosh
.
I’ll break down his main findings.
During the October 7 massacre, Hamas terrorists “managed to disable [IDF] tanks in the Gaza border area and render them unusable.” How? “The terrorists knew about a secret button in the tank which, when pressed, disables the tank for a certain period.”
This left Israeli officials wondering: how on earth did Hamas have such sensitive information on Israeli Merkava tanks? The answer: Beginning in 2018, an apparatus of some 2,500 Hamas operatives followed nearly 100,000 IDF soldiers on social media, who, to say the least, did not follow strict information security discipline.
By tracking the soldiers, Hamas “pieced together the puzzle and obtained highly valuable information: photos and videos—some seemingly trivial—from bases, outposts, the armored corps training base in Shizafon; training videos of soldiers demonstrating tank procedures,” according to Kadosh. The result? “It built an entire program: a Nukhba terrorist force was trained over a long period to become ‘tank operators.’ They had full-scale mock-ups of Merkava tanks, and even an advanced simulator program that trained them to operate the tank.”
The targets of this intelligence apparatus, of course, went far beyond IDF tanks.
But did Hamas really get all this information from public social media accounts? Far from it: Hamas even created fake accounts—such as a WhatsApp group for recruits into an elite IDF combat unit—in order to gain access to IDF soldiers who did not have public profiles.
Kadosh laid bare the consequences: “By cross-referencing photos and videos taken inside bases—from soldiers’ TikToks to images from beret ceremonies or discharge events—Hamas built precise models of IDF positions: where the rear gate was, where security cameras were placed, where the rapid response team was stationed, and where the armory was located.”
But there’s more. “Using this information,” Kadosh wrote, “Hamas built maps, simulations, and even simulators. It purchased a 3D simulation software at full 1:1 scale, and constructed simulators of bases and outposts. Nukhba terrorists could put on virtual-reality headsets in Gaza and rehearse their infiltration of each outpost.”
“And not only simulations: Hamas also built physical, real-world models of the Gaza-border outposts—and sent its soldiers to train inside them.”
Ok, but how did Israeli intelligence not find out about these operations? According to Kadosh, Jerusalem was well aware, but as a senior officer told him, “We never imagined how accurate they were.”
In a final gut punch, Kadosh spoke to an officer in the Israeli Air Force who saw Hamas’ plans to raid a base he served at. What did he say? “Hamas knew this base better than I did, even though I served there for many years.”
www.jpost.com
