Military investigations have reportedly revealed that Hamas spent years collecting sensitive intelligence on IDF bases and equipment, especially tanks and their operations, from soldiers’ social media activity, allowing the terror group to disable tanks and raid army bases during its October 7, 2023, onslaught in southern Israel.
Army Radio reported Sunday that a specialized Hamas intelligence unit built a detailed database over several years by piecing together thousands of social media posts by soldiers, including photos and videos, specifically focusing on the Merkava Mark 4 tank — the most advanced armored vehicle in the IDF’s arsenal.
According to the report, Hamas learned about a hidden kill switch on the tank that disables the vehicle and renders it useless, which they utilized during their attacks on IDF bases along the Gaza border on October 7, especially during their assault on the Nahal Oz base, where 53 soldiers were killed and 10 were taken hostage.
The extent of the terror group’s understanding of IDF bases and equipment was only made known to the military when soldiers found a tunnel complex in early 2024 containing a trove of intelligence data about military positions, vehicles, and units, which had largely been gathered by monitoring the social media accounts of some 100,000 Israeli soldiers, the report said.
The tunnel complex, dubbed “the Pentagon” by the IDF, was reportedly located underneath central Gaza’s refugee camps. The underground complex stored maps, intelligence reports, virtual reality simulators and full-scale models of military equipment, which Hamas accumulated over some five years of intelligence gathering.
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According to the report, Hamas’s intelligence units used the facility as a headquarters for a meticulous, multi-year intelligence and training program based largely on open-source information inadvertently leaked by soldiers online.
Hamas terrorists attack the IDF’s Nahal Oz base on October 7, 2023, as seen in footage released by the terror group. (Screenshot: Telegram)
The facility was also used as an underground training base for the terror group’s elite Nukhba force, which created a unit specifically trained to operate IDF tanks using intelligence gathered via social media.
While the special Hamas tank unit was initially supposed to commandeer the tanks and drive them into Gaza with the intention of using them against the IDF in battle, on the day of the attacks, the operatives failed to do so and only succeeded in disabling the tanks, the report said.
Still, the group’s success in disabling the tanks deeply puzzled IDF brass at the time, as they were unsure how Hamas fighters figured out the Merkava Mark 4’s hidden kill switch — until the army uncovered the extent of the Hamas intelligence unit’s database.
Palestinians celebrating near a destroyed Israeli tank at the Gaza Strip fence east of Khan Younis, October 7, 2023. (AP/Hassan Eslaiah)
The intelligence unit, which reportedly consisted of some 2,500 operatives, created tens of thousands of fake social media accounts to follow hundreds of thousands of IDF soldiers in the hopes that the soldiers would post sensitive and classified information about their equipment and bases.
Over five years, beginning in 2018, Hamas collected and studied the data, building intelligence reports that the IDF probes said rivaled the military’s own special operation dossiers.
The unit also managed to infiltrate internal WhatsApp groups for various IDF units by creating fake profiles, which they used to track individual soldiers from the time they were drafted though their promotions to officers and even high-level commanders.
According to the report, Hamas’s military intelligence unit produced daily reports about routine IDF activity that detailed where every military company was located, where every Iron Dome battery was positioned, and whether the IDF made changes to troop deployment or quietly moved forces between sectors.
Palestinians ride on an Israeli military vehicle taken from an army base inside Israel overrun by Hamas, in Gaza City, October 7, 2023. (AP/Abed Abu Reash)
The group cross-referenced thousands of real-time data points from social networks and built precise models of IDF bases and equipment into virtual reality simulators, which were used to train elite operatives, the report said.
An officer quoted by Army Radio said the military knew about some of Hamas’s training models, but said “we never imagined how accurate they were.”
“Hamas knew [the bases] better than I did, and I served there for many years.” another officer told the outlet.
The Times of Israel reported in March on the IDF’s probes into the Hamas-led attack on the Nahal Oz base, which found that the terror group knew how many troops were deployed at the base at any given date, as well as the best time to attack, how long it would take for the IDF to send backup troops to the base, and what the best routes were to reach the base.
The torched command center of the Nahal Oz IDF base, overrun by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, during a visit by relatives of slain lookout soldiers on December 19, 2023. (Courtesy/Eyal Eshel)
A document found in Gaza detailed the exact layout of the base, including bomb shelters, barracks, generator rooms, communication antennas, surveillance cameras, and the war room. Hamas knew where the commanders slept, how effective the shelters would be against rocket fire, and how many soldiers had weapons, and which weapons.
The attack on Nahal Oz, located just 850 meters from the border with the Gaza Strip, was perhaps the terror group’s most successful single attack of its October 7, 2023, onslaught.
The base, which held 162 soldiers, 90 of whom were armed, served as an army post for combat soldiers due to its proximity to Gaza, as well as a command center for the Border Defense Corps’ 414th Combat Intelligence Collection Unit, whose female members operate surveillance cameras looking toward the Strip.
Hamas terrorists attack the IDF’s Nahal Oz base on October 7, 2023, as seen in footage released by the terror group. (Screenshot: Telegram)
On the morning of October 7, some 215 Hamas terrorists stormed the base, quickly overrunning its defenses and capturing it. In all, 53 soldiers were killed at the base: 31 combat troops and 22 noncombat — including 16 female surveillance soldiers. Another 10 were abducted — seven female surveillance soldiers and three tank soldiers.
A total of 35 terrorists were killed inside the Nahal Oz base and another 10 just outside it. Dozens more were killed between the base and the Gaza border barrier.
Over 1,200 people were killed during the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel, mostly civilians, and 251 people were taken hostage into Gaza. The attacks sparked the war against terror groups in the Strip, which was paused by a US-negotiated ceasefire last month after two years of fighting.