TEHRAN — Handala said on Sunday that it broke into the Israeli military’s Media Intelligence Monitoring and Analysis Unit and put more than 500 classified documents and tens of thousands of internal messages online.
The unit combs Israeli and foreign media for the army and works alongside Unit 8200 and the military censor.
Handala called the breach “a blow to Israel’s information security infrastructure” and said it will soon publish the unit’s organizational structure and the reach of its access to military intelligence systems.
A small sample from the release, analyzed by the Tehran Times, shows the work itself. It holds 11,275 posts from X, all filed under the label “Israeli Media” and nearly all written in January 2024, the fourth month of the war on Gaza.
Each carries the author’s handle and a “normalized influence” score from zero to 78. About 4,500 accounts appear, roughly four in five posting in Hebrew.
Where a follower count was recorded, the median is 377, and an account with seven followers still earned a 17.
A considerable portion of what the analysts gathered is Israelis arguing and commenting about their own regime. More than 3,000 posts concern the captives.
Ynet Alerts relays the army’s admission that captive Sahar Baruch died in a failed rescue, under the line that living hostages do not return by military means.
Prof. David Pinto’s call to “flood Hamas’s tunnels” is posted again and again. One user writes that the government would not be discussing ethnic cleansing in Gaza, and might stop starving Gazans, if Israelis filled the streets.
Then-war minister Yoav Gallant is named in about 190 posts, and Itamar Ben-Gvir in about 130. Over 400 posts react to the killing of Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut, and a dozen tag Senator Lindsey Graham. Posts demanding the army “crush everyone in Gaza and settle it with Jews” sit in the same file batch, on the same scale.
A smaller batch dates to August 8, 2022, days after Israel’s offensive in Gaza that month. It logs military correspondents Yoav Limor, Amir Bohbot, Yoav Zitun, Yossi Yehoshua, Roy Sharon and Or Heller, plus army-linked pages such as Soldiers Tweeting. Reporter tracking predates October 7 by more than a year.
Handala’s operation places the machinery that records and analyzes those conversations in open view. Handala says the unit’s organizational chart is next.
The Israeli establishment has long claimed technological superiority, backed by steady Western support. Each successful penetration chips at that claim.
Earlier Handala actions already emptied email accounts belonging to Ehud Barak, Gadi Eisenkot, and Benny Gantz, and pulled material from devices linked to Naftali Bennett and Netanyahu’s chief of staff.
In March, it published FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email, which U.S. officials confirmed. In April came some 19,000 files it attributed to former army chief Herzi Halevi. In September it released selfies of about 700 Israeli security personnel, taken with a tool it called Na’em.
On October 15, it posted 120 pages of contacts belonging to Israeli politician Tzipi Livni, exposing her opposition to Netanyahu as theater.
Naftali Bennett first denied his phone was compromised, then acknowledged unauthorized access to his Telegram account. This month Haaretz said it had verified leaked WhatsApp messages of Netanyahu aide Yonatan Urich, who confirmed his account was hacked.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: tehrantimes.com
