In recent years, the IDF, Mossad, and Shin Bet security agency have noticed increased activity by Hamas when it comes to its intelligence-gathering efforts. As time passed, it seemed that the terror organization, which has always sought to obtain as much information as possible about Israel, was striving to step up its efforts in this field, in a dramatic way.
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The central body in Hamas that dealt with this was the "Military Intelligence Department" – Moddatz, as it is called in Israel – which before the war had 2,100 operatives, which got their equipment and know-how from Iran and Hezbollah. The dominant figure in Hamas' intelligence array was Ayman Nofal, who was eliminated in the first days of the war. The IDF Military Intelligence Directorate, which closely monitored the department, was convinced that it had information on the entire range of Hamas' intelligence gathering apparatus.
But only after Oct. 7, when the IDF forces carried out a wide-scale operation into the Gaza Strip and raided the offices and retrieved the data on the server farms that Hamas had set up underground and the computers connected to them, did the true extent of Hamas' capabilities in intelligence become apparent. What was revealed there left Israeli intelligence officials speechless.
One example that illustrates the intelligence lapse is clearly illustrated in the security cameras that were compromised by Hamas. Although the IDF was aware of Hamas successfully hacking some civilian security cameras in Israeli communities to collect information, only after entering Gaza did the enormous scope of this Hamas endeavor become clear: The terrorist organization managed to get access to dozens of cameras, many of them inside kibbutzim on the Gaza border. The military now admits that the camera issue had been flagged but was not addressed with the necessary urgency.
Video: The IDF's findings within UNRWA's Gaza facilities / Credit: IDF Spokesperson's Unit
Another area in which Hamas' real capabilities came to light after the war began is cyber warfare. In recent years, the IDF has noticed many attempts by Hamas' Moddatz elements to hack into soldiers' mobile phones. As was the case with the camera hacking, only after entering Gaza and seizing Hamas' servers in the tunnels did it become clear that this was just the tip of the iceberg. The IDF now understands that there were Hamas attacks that went undetected in real-time and that despite the organization's relatively limited cyber capabilities, the intelligence information it extracted from the phones it did manage to hack served it well on October 7.
In addition, Hamas succeeded in developing reconnaissance capabilities that included drones, which hovered over the Gaza Strip and carried out oblique photography of Israeli territory. Here too, Israel was aware of this activity taking place.
According to experts who spoke with Israel Hayom, the Israeli intelligence community tended to underestimate and neglect Hamas' intelligence capabilities. "The perception in Israel was that Hamas did not have serious intelligence apparatuses and that at most they could 'raise binoculars' and observe from afar, and that terror organizations were not Russia or China," Dr. Netanel Flamer, a senior lecturer in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at Bar-Ilan University, told Israel Hayom. "This was a very big mistake. Hamas had high-quality intelligence bodies, but the threat was not sufficiently internalized in Israel's security systems."
The full article will be published in the Israel Hayom weekend supplement.
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