Because the terrorist assaults on Oct. 7, Israel has recovered a trove of intelligence that its army has used to evaluate the extent of Hamas’s plans, in addition to its battle ways and skills, data that Israeli officers say has helped form the war in Gaza.
On the websites of assaults in Israel and battles in Gaza, the army has discovered gadgets that element the situation of Hamas installations and tunnels, together with how the armed group operates underground, in accordance with paperwork and different data made accessible by the Israeli army for The New York Occasions to assessment. It additionally retrieved a laptop computer that appeared to indicate that Hamas wished to grab quite a lot of beforehand unknown areas on Oct. 7, together with a army base south of Tel Aviv.
“This war, we are witnessing something we haven’t seen in previous wars: ground forces, including the armored corps, benefiting from the real-time, precise intelligence information directly transmitted to them,” mentioned Brig. Gen. Hisham Ibrahim, the commander of the armored corps. “Information from intelligence units is swiftly transmitted to combat forces.”
The Israeli Military launched a devastating counterattack after Hamas-led assailants killed about 1,200 folks and took roughly 240 hostages, in accordance with the Israeli authorities. In an effort to remove Hamas, the army has bombarded and invaded the enclave, in a battle that has killed greater than 15,000 Gazans, in accordance with the well being authorities in Gaza.
At a briefing on Monday for journalists at a army base north of Tel Aviv, the Israeli army shared a number of the supplies collected over the course of the battle from lifeless fighters and areas contained in the Gaza Strip, which it says collectively contains maps, pamphlets, transmitters, telephones, video cameras, walkie-talkies, notebooks and computer systems. The data is being analyzed by a brand new Israeli unit chargeable for ensuring the findings shortly get to the troopers battling Hamas, officers mentioned.
The army offered entry to key intelligence paperwork on the settlement that reporters wouldn’t disclose granular particulars whereas making a number of the data accessible for publication. The journalists had to make use of surgical gloves to deal with supplies, a few of which had been stained with dried blood.
Supplies reviewed by The Occasions had been per different recognized paperwork and equipment discovered within the aftermath of the Oct. 7 assaults, data made public by the Israeli army and located in Hamas movies. The Occasions has additionally reviewed pictures of lifeless Hamas members and their private belongings with a number of the identical gadgets shared by the army on the briefing.
A number of the paperwork described in depth details about Hamas ways and army formations. One doc seen by The Occasions included the breakdown of a platoon, together with the ages of the fighters in it; greater than half had been older than 25, indicating that this specific platoon was stuffed with seasoned members.
The army has additionally collected pictures and movies of Hamas army leaders, data that could possibly be used for focusing on functions. On Tuesday, the Israeli army released a picture of what it mentioned had been senior Hamas army leaders in northern Gaza having fun with meals inside a tunnel, claiming that 5 of the lads had been killed. The army mentioned an Israeli intelligence unit had analyzed the image after it was seized in Gaza in a tunnel close to the Indonesian Hospital.
The army wing of Hamas, Al Qassam Brigades, had beforehand confirmed that at the least three of males within the image had been killed.
As well as, the Israeli army mentioned it had retrieved journals that Hamas assailants had been carrying, together with different private gadgets.
Counting on such data, Common Ibrahim mentioned he had made “small adjustments to the fighting strategy” because the battle began.
From a makeshift army camp in southern Israel, Common Ibrahim, the commander of the armored corps, oversees elements of tank warfare, which is going down in a densely populated space. The 46-year-old normal is without doubt one of the highest-ranking officers from Israel’s Druse neighborhood, an Arabic-speaking spiritual minority.
Because the cease-fire ended final week, Israeli troopers have been engaged in heavy preventing in southern Gaza close to the city of Khan Younis, in addition to the northern residential neighborhoods of Jabaliya and Shuja’iyya. Israeli tanks have performed a key function within the battles. Greater than a dozen Israeli troopers have been killed because the preventing has resumed.
He’s intensely targeted on defending troopers and tanks, and outwitting Hamas. Common Ibrahim mentioned he has six small groups on the bottom in Gaza to achieve insights from completely different models, the kind of supplies shared with The Occasions. He mentioned “learning bulletins” are despatched out to forces each few days.
He says he has additionally gleaned classes from Russia’s war in Ukraine, significantly how Russian tanks in Ukraine at instances became easy targets. To adapt to the specter of Hamas drones, he mentioned that Israel rushed to guarantee that tanks had been outfitted with canopies over turrets.
Often called “pergolas,” Common Ibrahim mentioned they’d already proved to be efficient deterrents, explaining that Hamas drones seem to keep away from tanks with the canopies since they supply safety in opposition to warheads. The final described the pergola as a low-tech measure used to defend in opposition to drones, whereas including that the army has high-tech benefits, together with a protection system generally known as “Trophy.”
The supplies spotlight different challenges for Common Ibrahim and his workforce. Hamas booklets, seen by The Occasions, present the weak spots of Israel’s Merkava tanks working contained in the Gaza Strip, with their big 120-millimeter cannons, in addition to Israeli armored personnel carriers. Hamas fighters even have directions on which kind of warhead to make use of in opposition to Israel armor. He mentioned the Hamas fighters have principally relied on rocket-propelled grenade launchers in assaults on armor.
Hamas fighters, the final mentioned, will regroup after struggling dangerous losses and return to battle in destroyed areas — seemingly misplaced floor. The army has tailored to keep away from Hamas improvised explosive units. Related units had been used to lethal impact in Iraq by militias against U.S. forces.
Whether or not it’s recovering hostages or focusing on senior Hamas leaders in the vast tunnel network below Gaza, appearing shortly on new intelligence recovered from the battlefield is important for a profitable mission, present and former American army and intelligence officers mentioned.
“Going after hostages or leadership targets are very intelligence-driven events,” mentioned Mick Mulroy, a retired C.I.A. officer and a former prime Center East coverage official on the Pentagon. Ideally, Mr. Mulroy mentioned, extremely skilled particular operations models are embedded with typical forces conducting floor operations or on alert close by to reply shortly to such time-sensitive data.
As Israeli floor forces clear areas of southern Gaza, Mr. Mulroy mentioned troopers would almost definitely use encrypted messaging apps to alert each other to new ways, strategies or procedures Hamas is utilizing.
“Lessons learned can be disseminated very quickly,” he mentioned.
Common Ibrahim has mentioned that the Israeli army has relied closely on what is called mixed arms preventing: the usage of tanks, infantry and fight engineering below the quilt of heavy airstrikes.
“It’s a force multiplier, and has been very effective in Gaza,” he mentioned.
Whereas Israeli technique has helped maintain the military’s casualties down, 1000’s of civilians in Gaza have been killed. The rising loss of life toll has intensified worldwide strain to barter one other cease-fire.
The American authorities has additionally requested the Israelis to fight more surgically as they drive deeper in southern Gaza in locations like Khan Younis. Whereas the Israeli army believes that’s the place elements of Hamas management are considered hiding, it is usually full of civilians, lots of them displaced several times already with few locations to go and confusion about what’s protected.
Requested about staggering numbers of civilian deaths, Common Ibrahim defended the Israeli army. He mentioned that Israel had tried to clear the battlefield of civilians, giving them time to depart, dropping fliers, broadcasting on audio system and calling their cellphones to depart the world.
“It’s almost impossible to have no civilian casualties in a military operation like this,” Mr. Mulroy mentioned. “Their objective is to degrade Hamas’s military capability to the point where it doesn’t pose an immediate threat to Israel. ”
The USA has designated Hamas a terrorist group, and American officers have inspired the Israelis to mannequin their floor marketing campaign on an method employed by Stanley A. McChrystal when he commanded U.S. Particular Operations forces in a targeted-killing marketing campaign in opposition to Al Qaeda in Iraq.
That marketing campaign, which killed the group’s leader in 2006, demonstrated to U.S. army theorists that the usage of small groups of commandos, mixed with precision strikes from drones and manned plane and appearing shortly on new details about the enemy seized on the battlefield, could be efficient at flushing out and focusing on key leaders, and weakening their organizations.
Common Ibrahim mentioned that the preventing — each above and under floor — could be robust in southern Gaza however that “we will still win.” He added, “We are fighting Hamas, not the people of Gaza.”
Israeli safety officers are persevering with to attempt to piece collectively the place Hamas obtained a few of its gear and delicate particulars about Israeli places. Among the many gadgets present in Israel after the assaults and displayed had been Motorola radios utilized in Hamas automobiles to keep up contact with commanders in Gaza. The radios had been much like those utilized in Israeli taxis.
There have been additionally detailed maps of at the least one kibbutz with seemingly each constructing marked.
And on the pc taken from a Hamas commander’s truck was additionally a schematic of the army base south of Tel Aviv, displaying most of the buildings. It isn’t clear how a lot of the detailed map of the bottom was accessible publicly.
Gal Koplewitz contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.
