The IDF's not-so-secret secret unit - Ronen Shiviak

by Ronen Shiviak

When the soldiers in the Hatzav unit of the IDF log onto Facebook, they are actually entering the battlefield • In this day and age, every Palestinian kid with a smartphone can help the IDF defeat the enemy, and it is Hatzav's job to make sure they do.

 

The IDF's Hatzav unit in action | Photo credit: Gideon Markowicz

A body in a burning vehicle, with dollar bills, euro notes and Jordanian dinars fluttering in the air every which way. Suddenly, dozens of Gaza residents descend on them in a rapid fury. This surreal scene happened in northern Gaza City at the start of Operation Protective Edge after a missile fired by the Israeli Air Force killed Hamas "finance minister" Mohammed Talat al-Ghoul. The attack also blew the cover off of the treasury chief's secret stash of money that was hidden in the trunk of his car. 

These embarrassing images -- certainly from Hamas' standpoint -- were never shown on the terrorist organization's official media organs. However, they were immediately posted and shared throughout Facebook and other social media by ordinary Gazans. This provided the IDF's intelligence-gathering units with valuable information.

The soldiers who serve in the Hatzav Unit used the data in two ways. First, they disseminated it to other intelligence agencies in order to offer definitive proof that al-Ghoul was taken out. Secondly, they passed these images on to the IDF Spokesperson's Unit (which always makes sure to have a representative in the Hatzav offices), which in turn distributed it to every possible media outlet in order to score public relations points by pointing out that "while the residents of Gaza go hungry, Hamas operatives are traveling around with millions on their cars."

"Until a few years ago, in order to get these kinds of pictures, the IDF needed to use technological means like drones, which provided photographs that were taken from a great distance," says Lt. Col. R., 42, the commander of the Hatzav intelligence unit. "Today, thanks to the social media revolution, it is easy to obtain high-resolution pictures that were taken from a short distance and from a good angle. In addition to the public relations benefits, it is also the best evidence that you hit exactly the person you intended to hit."

Make no mistake, the evidence gathered by the Hatzav unit is invaluable to the officers in the various combat units. "When I paid a visit to the Gaza Division during Operation Protective Edge," Lt. Col. R. continues, "the officer responsible for analyzing the results of the attacks by our forces told me, 'Tell your guys many thanks, because without you I don't know what I'd do.'"

The social media revolution that has taken hold in recent years has infused new life into the quite modest offices of the Hatzav unit in the Intelligence Corps headquarters, located in central Israel. In years past, Hatzav wasn't thought of as one of the army's more prestigious units. Its main job was to provide summaries of government-affiliated Arab media reports. Today, however, the situation has changed dramatically.

"Our main preoccupation is social media, not television and radio," says Lt. Col. R. "In the era of social media, readily available intelligence becomes much more significant. We aren't just talking about propaganda anymore, but about reporters and citizens who post uncensored, unfiltered information in real time -- and this is valuable intelligence."

In light of this new reality, the nature of the training and instruction that (a "small number" of) soldiers undergo has changed. Today, Hatzav is looking not just for soldiers with knowledge of spoken foreign languages in target countries but also -- and in particular -- those who live in the world of the Internet and have a good grasp of social media. As such, most of the unit's troops are young conscripts. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to find officers over 30 years of age.

Rapid response

This up-to-date knowledge is what enables the unit to score great achievements. For example, a year ago, when three boys -- Naftali Fraenkel, Gil-ad Shaer and Eyal Yifrach -- were kidnapped in Gush Etzion (and subsequently murdered), the unit was determined to get a claim of responsibility for the kidnapping. "From the moment the abduction took place, we looked at open media constantly in order to try and fish out this piece of information [Hamas' claim of responsibility]," says Lt. Col. R.

"On August 20, 2014, there was an esoteric conference of sorts held by these clerics in Turkey," he said. "But we had a gut feeling that some statement would come out of there, and so we logged on to the live feed on YouTube."

The officers' intuition paid off. Salah al-Arouri, a senior Hamas official responsible for the organization's activities in the West Bank, acknowledged the group's culpability in a speech.

"Once we heard this statement, we were quick to send it through every possible channel," says R. "The speed with which we pass on the information in this day and age is critical."

This was plainly illustrated in one particular event during Operation Protective Edge. Just 90 minutes before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon and then-IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz were about to give a routine press briefing, it emerged that a rocket fired by Hamas hit a Palestinian kindergarten in the Shati refugee camp.

Hamas' official outlets reported that 10 children were killed, and they were quick to blame the IDF for intentionally slaughtering youngsters. What the terrorist organization failed to take into account was that the area was teeming with foreign correspondents who were staying in the strip of hotels located in the school's vicinity. These correspondents have a special fondness for posting updates on Twitter. In a short span of time, a number of reporters tweeted photographs proving that the rocket was in fact fired by Hamas and not Israel. In other words, the incident had nothing to do with the IDF.

Hatzav knew how to make use of the information in real time. Before the news conference even started, the chief of staff was given an aerial photograph proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the rocket was fired by Palestinians. The only thing left for Gantz to do was to show the photograph to the reporters and to say with full confidence that this event was the result of an errant Palestinian rocket.

"If we were an hour late in noticing the tweets, then our work would have been irrelevant," R. says. "The chief of staff would have been asked questions like, 'Why is Israel killing Palestinian children?' And he would not have had an answer."

One of the foreign reporters who tweeted on the matter was Italian correspondent Gabriele Barbati, who was shrewd enough to return to Italy the very next day. It was only after he arrived back home that he tweeted more information about what went on behind the scenes.

"Outside of Gaza, far from Hamas attempts at revenge; this was an errant Hamas rocket that killed children in Shati," he tweeted. Barbati wasn't the only one who tweeted after leaving the Strip, safe from Hamas' tentacles.

Learning from failure

It seems as though the IDF and Hamas have been playing a game of cat and mouse. During Operation Protective Edge, the spokesperson for the Palestinian Interior Ministry launched an aggressive campaign warning the public in Gaza against Israeli surveillance on social media. Contrary to what one might expect in a dictatorial society, these PR blitzes did not work. 

"Even in such a closed society that is tightly controlled by Hamas, things come out and emerge," says R. "There are smartphones everywhere, and all of a sudden everyone is a journalist and a photographer that provides information."

When Lt. Col. R. uses the word "everywhere," he is quite accurate. 

Second Lt. Y., 22, heads a class of soldiers in Hatzav. His department is responsible for monitoring social media.

"Internet usage in Gaza and the West Bank is at around 40%," she said. "It is accessed through every means available, including smartphones, particularly among young people."

These impressive statistics not only enable the army to collect tactical intelligence (like tweets about specific operations), but it also allows to gather strategic data about the public mood. Strategic data refers to information that sheds light on dilemmas like whether the Palestinian public in Gaza supports an escalation of attacks against Israel, what the chances are of a coup in Gaza, and whether the Palestinian public supports the Islamic State group.

"We recently received a telephone call from the office of the head of Military Intelligence," says Lt. Col. R. with a smile. "We were told, 'The head of MI wants to know by the afternoon what the Palestinian public thinks of so and so. Good luck. You have two hours.'"

Such a request from the commander of MI is not far-fetched. Indeed, social media has turned this age-old goal -- knowing what the masses think -- into something that has never been more feasible. Special software enables the army to catalog and store the various tweets and status posts (by enabling keyword searches) while providing an eye-opening picture using colorful charts and graphs.

Despite the advances made in the field, the IDF has been burned, particularly with its failure to predict the Arab Spring. The previous head of MI, Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi, said in his farewell address that one of his greatest failures was the inability to forecast the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

"The revolution in Egypt surprised everybody, including Mubarak," says R. "Nobody in academia, the press or the military saw it coming. Everybody missed it."

The MI high command did not take much solace in the fact that they were not alone. In the aftermath of its Egypt failure, the unit launched a massive, comprehensive internal investigation that prompted a major shift in the manner in which public moods are studied. This led to a significant upgrade in its ability to monitor and analyze trends in public opinion.

"This is a very difficult, complex area," says R. "Social media is not the be-all-end-all. It only represents the specific slice of the population that uses it. Usually young people and those who are educated use it, so it needs to be viewed with the care and skepticism it deserves."

Despite all these caveats and caution signs, Hatzav soldiers are convinced that they are able to provide a credible, up-to-the minute picture of the zeitgeist that has taken hold in the countries that they are charged with monitoring. 

"The guys here are honing their skills, learning which is the most credible Internet forum in Gaza and which Twitter users are trustworthy, etc.," says R.

Hatzav analysts assert that the talk on Palestinian social media does not resemble Israeli social media, which likes to analyze the winner and losers in the war. "You won't find criticism of Hamas for losing the war on Palestinian social media," says 2nd Lt. Y. "The average citizen doesn't focus on the question of who won and who lost, but on how he or she copes with what the day brings. It is living in a state of fear that things will get worse, a fear of entering into another round of conflict with Israel before the rehabilitation is complete. The infrastructure in the Gaza Strip is in a very bad state, and the people there don't see a light at the end of the tunnel from that standpoint."

Y. notes that a year after the war's conclusion, there is a noticeable change in that the Palestinian public is less active in -- and less encouraging of -- terrorist attacks. 

"The prevailing mood among the public is one of despair and cynicism," she says. "In the context of terrorist activities, you will often see people write, 'What does it matter already?' or 'What good will it do if I do this or that?'"

These sentiments reflected the public mood throughout last year with the exception of the last two months of 2014, when public interest clearly shifted in the wake of a wave of grass-roots terrorism in Jerusalem and the surrounding area that year (vehicular ramming, the axe and cleaver attack in a synagogue in Har Nof, the murder of Palestinian teen Mohammed Abu Khdeir, etc.).

"We saw very emotionally charged social media discourse that was instigated by Hamas, and the citizens took part in this," 2nd Lt. Y. says. "There were calls to commit terrorist attacks against Israel, and the people were very active.

"At one point, we noticed a campaign that was going viral on social media and the press, encouraging car-ramming attacks by using a play on words similar to the Arabic acronym for Islamic State," says Lt. A., 22 -- the officer charged with overseeing the Palestinian division in Hatzav. 

"We passed on our observations to the higher-ups. Shortly afterward, we saw the prime minister using the information we provided, and in his remarks to the press before the start of a cabinet meeting, he spoke of the disturbing campaign and the escalation in rhetoric and incitement."

Another notable achievement which Hatzav can take credit for is the fact that they foresaw that there would be no popular uprising on Nakba Day (May 15). "Part of our success is also saying that things won't happen," said Lt. Col. R. "There was a fear that things would get out of hand because of the fact that it was the first Nakba Day after Operation Protective Edge and because the peace process was stuck, but we knew that it wouldn't happen since we didn't notice any mass preparation for it on social media."

Nonetheless, there are times when the most valuable piece of intelligence is hidden in enemy propaganda. Such a "treasure" was discovered by Hatzav analysts in recent weeks while looking over a Hamas commercial on its official television network. In the clip, tunnel-diggers are referred to as "heroes" for the effort they put into their work.

The clip was designed to raise morale among the terrorists involved in digging the tunnels, particularly after a number of them died as a result of accidents. 

"This is an amazing public relations weapon," says Lt. Col. R. "At a time when Gaza is not being rebuilt and the world is asking us why there are restrictions on the supplies and materials being allowed into the Strip, we can use this video and tell the world, 'Look at what they are doing.'"

The Hezbollah 'chatterbox'

Another source of worry and concern for the IDF in general -- and Hatzav in particular -- is the phenomenon known as Islamic State. Hatzav is especially interested in whether the group has managed to infiltrate the countries neighboring Israel. When it comes to the Gaza Strip, analysts have a clear answer.

"In all of the studies that we have done thus far, we have not noticed any support for Islamic State among the public in the Gaza Strip," says Lt. Col. R. "On the contrary, we've noticed quite a bit of disgust with Islamic State, disgust from the horrific and barbaric acts as well as their treatment of women."

As we all know, one can never go to sleep in the Middle East without any worries for what may come. A clip posted in early July raised the anxiety level in Hatzav. It was a claim of responsibility made by a sub-organization affiliated with Islamic State. These operatives were claiming credit for a rocket fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip.

"This clip was very disconcerting because for the first time we saw an Islamic State-style event in the Gaza Strip," says R. "It was the same logo, the same film production, the same rhetoric. It sent shock waves through the system."

But the social mediasphere also provides Hatzav soldiers with occasional doses of comic relief. During the recent Ashura fast, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah gave a long speech on each day of the two-week period. This prompted social media users to invent the hashtag #hassanthechatterbox. Twitter and Facebook users even mocked the soft drink that he would sip during the course of his speech, with some claiming that it was a mixture that contained medicine and that the beverage was simply a way to conceal the fact that he was ill. 

If there is one thing that Hatzav would prefer to keep a secret, it's the sense that they are a bit envious of other intelligence units that have access to classified information.

"When I was a young soldier doing a course, I felt a bit left out knowing that I would be dealing with information that is readily available while others would be dealing with secret data," says 2nd Lt. Y. "But once I got to the unit, I discovered the breadth of the issues with which I was dealing and the respect that they deserve as well as the consequences and repercussions of the work I do. So it is hard to say that I'm missing out on anything."

Ronen Shiviak

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=27603

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.