Open-source intelligence is readily available and inexpensive. Hamas collected a lot of information from open sources, mainly the Israeli press. In this case, Hamas exploited the fact that Israel is a democratic state with a relatively free press to get valuable information for its operations. This sort of collection activity became more organized after Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip and was Hamas’s main source for strategic analysis. This chapter describes the intelligence content Hamas gathered from open sources and that content’s contribution to its activities.

Since its founding in 1987, the political and ideological dimensions of the terror organization Hamas have been well discussed by scholars. In contrast, this innovative study takes a new approach by exploring the entire scope of Hamas’s intelligence activity against its state adversary, Israel. Using primary sources in Arabic, Hebrew, and English, the author analyzes the development of Hamas’s various methods for gathering information, its use of this information for operational needs and strategic analysis, and its counterintelligence activity against the Israeli intelligence apparatus. The Hamas Intelligence War against Israel explores how Hamas’s activity has gradually become more sophisticated as its institutions have become more established and the nature of the conflict has changed. As the first full-length study to analyze the intelligence efforts of a violent non-state actor, this book sheds new light on the activities and operations of Hamas, and opens new avenues for intelligence research in the wider field.

Since its founding in 1987, the political and ideological dimensions of the terror organization Hamas have been well discussed by scholars. In contrast, this innovative study takes a new approach by exploring the entire scope of Hamas’s intelligence activity against its state adversary, Israel. Using primary sources in Arabic, Hebrew, and English, the author analyzes the development of Hamas’s various methods for gathering information, its use of this information for operational needs and strategic analysis, and its counterintelligence activity against the Israeli intelligence apparatus. The Hamas Intelligence War against Israel explores how Hamas’s activity has gradually become more sophisticated as its institutions have become more established and the nature of the conflict has changed. As the first full-length study to analyze the intelligence efforts of a violent non-state actor, this book sheds new light on the activities and operations of Hamas, and opens new avenues for intelligence research in the wider field.

The conclusion chapter sums up the contribution of Hamas’s intelligence to the organization’s activities associated with its struggle against Israel. It details the strengths and weaknesses of the organization’s efforts to gather intelligence on Israel, counter Israeli intelligence activity, and assess Israel’s intentions and capabilities. This chapter also examines lessons from the case study of Hamas that may be applied to a general understanding of intelligence warfare by VNSAs.

The chapter analyzes Hamas’s use of intelligence to conduct successful operations against Israel. The combination of intelligence gathering and clandestine activities, as described in the previous chapters, led to several high-quality operations against Israel. For example, in an attack in 2006, Hamas successfully abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit and was able to keep him hidden for years, despite Israel’s efforts to find and rescue him in the tiny Gaza Strip. In addition, Hamas created a “bank” of targets through its intelligence-gathering efforts. This structured list of vulnerable quality targets was used to focus rocket attacks against Israel and find locations for suicide attacks.

The chapter explores Hamas’s strategic analysis and study of Israel and the IDF. As part of its intelligence warfare, Hamas strove to increase its knowledge of the enemy. This chapter describes Hamas’s accumulation of intelligence about Israeli weaponry, IDF units, Israeli battlefield tactics, operational training, and so on. The organization particularly sought information about the capabilities of Israeli armored vehicles in order to inform its use of anti-tank weaponry. The chapter also illustrates how Hamas disseminated this knowledge in its ranks. This chapter goes on to analyze Hamas’s operational preparations for war after Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Further, it examines Hamas’s ongoing assessment of the possibility and characteristics of a large-scale Israeli attack, and in particular the analysis of the Israeli political and social situation used by Hamas in order to form such an assessment. In this manner, the chapter discusses the influence of Hamas’s “enemy image” of Israel – an image based on the organization’s Palestinian Islamic ideology as well as its interpretation of events and social processes in Israel – on the organization’s assessment of its enemy. The chapter also sheds light on the organization’s difficulties in strategic analysis of Israel.

After addressing Hamas’s intelligence collection in previous chapters, this chapter focusses on Hamas’s efforts to counter Israeli intelligence efforts against it. To overcome Israel’s attempts to infiltrate its ranks, Hamas went to great lengths to screen those wishing to join it, while diligently acting to detect collaborators with Israel, both within its ranks and in the broader society in which they operate, while applying internal compartmentalization to the organization. To counter Israel’s SIGINT activity, Hamas tried to avoid the use of wireless communications, and also made use of encryption, both in telephone communication and in correspondence; over time, Hamas developed an internal communication system that is separate from the public system. To defeat Israel’s GEOINT efforts, Hamas tried to conceal its activities to the greatest extent possible. This included a range of strategies, including camouflage, the assimilation of military installations in civilian surroundings, and the use of subterranean spaces. Regarding open-source media publications, Hamas developed the awareness of the need to impose censorship to hide certain characteristic signs of its activity.

The chapter deals with Hamas’s human intelligence (HUMINT) activity. Hamas, of course, makes use of the most traditional method of intelligence gathering – information from human sources. This chapter details how Hamas first recruited local sources for short periods and specific missions. Gradually, sources were recruited who could operate outside of Israel; these sources were sent on longer-term and more advanced missions. Hamas also used the internet, i.e., social media and email, to contact and handle potential sources. This chapter also describes how Hamas turned collaborators with Israel into double agents and ran operations using these agents.

This chapter describes how Hamas operatives set up tactical observation posts during the First Intifada, the years after the Oslo Accord, and the Second Intifada, and explores the systematization of this activity after Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Eventually, Hamas established the murabitun, a border patrol force that staffs observation posts and serves as the first responder to any Israeli incursion, and instituted an observation section of the ʿIzz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. The members of the latter section used more advanced equipment than had previously been deployed and documented their findings for in-depth analysis. This chapter also describes Hamas’s efforts to develop and operate unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for observation missions.

The chapter sheds light on Hamas’s signal intelligence (SIGINT) and cyber warfare. It describes how, in the first decade of the 2000s, Hamas gained SIGINT capabilities that made it possible for Hamas to intercept the camera broadcasts of IDF UAVs, as well as the IDF’s visible tactical communication traffic. In the 2010s, Hamas began to invest in cyber warfare. This chapter also surveys Hamas’s successful use of various hacking methods to penetrate the smartphones of IDF soldiers and officers, extracting information and installing spyware and using social engineering techniques; descriptions of several real-life cases are included for illustration.

Chapter 4 explores how appellate authorities in the EU understand and approach situations of armed conflict. This chapter claims that appellate authorities approach situations of armed conflict predominantly through the perspective of conventional warfare and a notion of territoriality. Such a perspective fails to acknowledge that one of the main strategies of fighting parties is to exercise political control over territory by forcibly displacing and terrorising populations through highly visible forms of human rights violations. The findings bring to the fore the misconceptions regarding the application of the Refugee Convention to persons fleeing armed conflicts, namely a perceived dichotomy between a risk of individual persecution and a risk arising from widespread violence. The research challenges appellate authorities’ conflation of asymmetrical warfare with lower levels of violence and less serious forms of violence contrary to knowledge in the field of feminist and security studies indicating that non-conventional armed conflicts are in fact characterised by armed groups’ relative control over the exercise of strategic, and thus political, violence. The chapter concludes that the existence of two distinct legal statuses in the EU based on reasons for flight operates as an obstacle to the development of international refugee law.

The chapter examines the recent changes in the nature of modern warfare. It argues that most recent military conflicts take the form of “low-intensity conflict,” “gray-zone competition,” “asymmetric warfare,” “fourth-generation warfare,” and “irregular warfare.” Given the huge military spending gap between Iran and its regional and global adversaries, Iranian leaders have articulated and adopted an asymmetric warfare doctrine since the 1979 revolution.