Israel Using “Digital HUMINT” To Spy On Palestinian Troublemakers

Israeli intelligence officers are tapping into social media sites under a false names to connect with those about to stab, run down or shoot Israelis.

Along with the undercover agents in the field, there is a new generation of Israeli “digital HUMINT” officers who are updated on the latest trends among the Arab youth and spread out in the same digital space as the users in the back alleys of Palestinian refugee camps.

According to Israeli intelligence website Debkafile, the spies pose as terrorists and use their fluent Arabic on Facebook or Twitter to request instructions, assistance, information and direction to “carry out attacks.” 

Israeli policymakers and security chiefs agree that the means used to disseminate and scale up the knife attacks, stone throwing, gunfire and hit-and-run attacks, consist largely of Facebook and Twitter and instant messaging services such as Skype and Whatsapp, which communicate instructions to the terror operatives.

The Debkafile report said that land-line and cellular communication, which until a few years ago served security organizations as their primary tools for forestalling terror, are now old hat. Almost extinct too are the costly technological engineering and SIGINT (signal intelligence) equipment and information systems, once used for disrupting and thwarting terror.

The contemporary emphasis on OSINT (open source intelligence), which monitors the mass media, such as television and radio stations, internet sites and newspapers, has given birth to a new branch of intelligence, which harvests critical operational and tactical data from the social networks.

Hundreds of male and female Israeli soldiers with fluent Arabic, using false names to mingle among Arab web surfers, were first used to good purpose at the outset of the Arab Spring. The project picked up steam as the trend of terror in the Arab and Muslim world grew.     

The vast amount of data garnered from social networks is a gold mine for analysts to draw conclusions, delineate the web of ties among terrorists and home in on orders and instructions passed out to fuel the current wave of terror.

Even as you are reading this article, the Israeli security and law enforcement agencies have been able to pinpoint and make personal calls to the parents or acquaintances of identified rioters and potential terrorists, to warn them in Arabic that they are in for serious consequences – a variety on the “knock on roof” warnings the IDF gave to Gaza households during the last Gaza campaign against terror.