‘The level of their awareness about that Intelligence Corps base in the western Negev slipped us… they knew exactly what they wanted to achieve.’
By Vered Weiss, World Israel News
The Hamas terrorists who invaded southwestern Israel on October 7th had detailed intelligence information on Israeli army positions and civilian communities near the Gaza border, enabling them to easily and quickly overcome Israeli defenses, captured terrorists have told Israeli investigators.
Interrogations with Hamas Nukhba terrorists and recovered documents reveal the extent to which Hamas had mapped out IDF bases and civilian areas in the south before the October 7th massacre.
Unit 504 of Israel’s Intelligence Division has revealed that Hamas terrorist commanders gathered intelligence on IDF activity and locations as well as detailed information about communities in the south and trained and instructed their terrorists accordingly.
Nukhba terrorists knew security vulnerabilities, the precise locations of dining and sleeping areas, observation posts, and the exact layout of IDF bases.
Some of them even had videos of the bunker and server room in a unit of the Intelligence Corp they were going to attack and even marked which computers they were planning to steal.
The IDF believes that much of this detailed information about the Intelligence Corp unit came from Iranian intelligence.
A source from the Israeli military explained, “The level of their awareness about that Intelligence Corps base in the western Negev slipped us, they knew exactly what they wanted to achieve.”
Nukhba terrorists were also instructed on how to interfere with the connection between antennas and communication lines to eavesdrop and receive encrypted messages sent between different IDF divisions.
Following these findings, the IDF declared that it would revamp and improve its security systems, especially in bases located close to the border.
In a report early in the war from The Wall Street Journal, it was revealed that Hamas gathered its intelligence before the October 7th invasion using cheap surveillance drones to create maps of Israeli towns and IDF bases.
In addition, the terror group received detailed information about the layout of kibbutzim from laborers who traveled across the border to work for Israelis.
Also, Hamas monitored Israeli websites and accessed real estate photos and social media posts describing the kibbutzim as well as layouts of buildings.