As ZDNet reports, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a military airstrike against a building in the Gaza Strip on Saturday.
That’s not the normal sort of story you’d expect a technology website like ZDNet to write about, until you realise that the IDF claims the building was the headquarters of Hamas’s cyberwarfare operations.
CLEARED FOR RELEASE: We thwarted an attempted Hamas cyber offensive against Israeli targets. Following our successful cyber defensive operation, we targeted a building where the Hamas cyber operatives work.
HamasCyberHQ.exe has been removed. pic.twitter.com/AhgKjiOqS7
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 5, 2019
According to Israel, Hamas launched an internet-based attack (no details have been shared of the nature of the attack) from the building which was repelled. However, clearly Israel’s military decided that countering the attack in cyberspace wasn’t enough, and so things rapidly turned physical.
“We were ahead of them all the time,” said Brigadier General D., the head of the IDF’s cyber defense division. “The moment they tried to do something, they failed.”
Israeli officials did not disclose any details about the Hamas cyberattack; however, they said they first stopped the attack online, and only then responded with an air strike.
“After dealing with the cyber dimension, the Air Force dealt with it in the physical dimension,” said IDF spokesperson, Brig. Gen. Ronen Manlis. “At this point in time, Hamas has no cyber operational capabilities.”
ZDNet‘s Catalin Cimpanu shared a video of the actual airstrike on Twitter.
Here is the video released by the IDF showing the air-strike against the building housing Hamas cyber forces. pic.twitter.com/uHm2ZYa4AP
— Catalin Cimpanu (@campuscodi) May 5, 2019
In the past Hamas has used its hacking prowess to hijack Israeli military drones.
This is the world we now live in. Expect more of this.
Hear more discussion on this topic in this episode of the “Smashing Security” podcast:
Smashing Security #127: 'I do love the Dutch'
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And what if they were just using a proxy server in that building? This is chilling
I wouldn't trust anything Israel say. They are known to be liars and often get caught out in the ir lies sooner or later. Unfortunately, the world doesn't blink an eye to check the authenticity of the report wherever Israel is concerned.
That's because the world – or most of it – blindly supports Israel despite the crimes it commits. Including things that are beyond hypocritical. Their settling removing people from their homes is the same thing as Lebensraum. Disgusting disregard for others and that's exactly what happened to the Jews – and others – during the Second World War. Oh hell anti-Semitism goes back centuries! Israel also uses white phosphorous (or did last I knew). And on the subject of Lebensraum and similar I read not long ago that Israel was evicting people from their homes – including Holocaust survivors! Unbelievable? No. Because of things they've done before. I believe it was also on their Holocaust Memorial Day to make it even worse (that I saw the articles anyway)! I have this vague memory they also in the past called some Holocaust survivors a risk to the state. Let's not forget that their blessed PM is guilty of something that they call out as horrible – revisionism. Telling the lie that Hitler wasn't going to gas the Jews until he talked with a Muslim … Right. First the Nazis just wanted them out of the Reich. There was the famous Madagascar Plan that fell out; there was also the 'leakage' of the ghettos. The Jews weren't even the Nazi's first enemies! Besides it was the 'euthanasia', 'wild euthanasia' and more so Aktion T4 that started the gas experiments. And ironically the first child of the 'euthanasia' programme was actually not targeted by the Nazis but rather a family member saw the suffering (loss of some limbs, deformed other limbs – something like that) and Hitler sent his doctor Karl Brandt to investigate to see if it was true. It was. And this only helped move things forward. They of course had their own ideals to help here but they also modelled their eugenics programme on the US eugenics programme – that in some states lasted until the 1970s even though the doctors were tried for this (certainly Karl Brandt was and he was executed despite not being a participant in the human experiments in the camps); one American said 'The Germans are beating us at our own game'. But they were even thanked (that is the family thanked the Nazis for the 'euthanasia')! Well of course there is a lot more to it but the point here is that Israel's PM is guilty of revisionism and that is what they say is a euphemism of Holocaust denial which is something they are obviously very very against and consider anti-Semitism to a high degree. So does much of the world where it's illegal to even suggest it (though not in the US). Well you can't have it both ways. Unless of course you are in fact Israel. My theory is that it's because of the fact the entire world didn't care about their plight; England turned down a deal of hostages lest the Nazis would want to unload more Jews upon them [England]. The US went out of its way to prevent many Jews from entering the nation. See also the SS St. Louis that nobody wanted. And then even after the war some Jews were imprisoned. Yet the worst of this all is that even an Israeli historian has admitted that they – Israel – abuse the Holocaust. Shameful. They even have a drone that decides by itself when to shoot itself! They also participate in assassinations.
But there is so much more to it… Let's not forget the Turkish flotilla for yet another example. And going back to settling they even steamrolled over an American girl (as in child) who was there to protest. Says a lot doesn't it? All this in perspective I actually do believe Israel here. Whether or not the story is complete or not I have no doubt that they would bomb buildings of Hamas even if it was on faulty evidence. Whether it was really a cyberattack who can tell without more information? Who can tell with more information? You say unfortunately the world doesn't blink an eye to check the authenticity? Well consider all the UN resolutions that a certain nameless nation always vetoes. Yet it's also known that Israel is guilty of torture. Then again so is that nameless nation. There is heaps of evidence on this. And then there is the very well named website 'If American Knew' … They even point out the settling but there is much much more. And that's only on the home page! Look it up on Google – If Americans Knew.
But of course we all know they're completely innocent and don't provoke attacks and don't have any part to play in the conflict! Well so many people of the world believe that anyway.
Nice to see they still have time to make a joke while taking lives.
Hello Graham,
Are you back in Facebook? I had the impression you quit.
Regards,
Alfonso
P.S. As usual, I enjoy your articles
No. I'm not on Facebook. :)
The building may have been used by Hamas; I haven't seen any admission by Hamas that it was. But it most certainly contained the Gaza offices of the Turkish state news agency Anadolu, and it is implied that Anadolu occupied most or even all of the office space in the building. The Turks are taking this as a deliberate Israeli attempt to silence hostile news reporting at a time when Palestinians are staging demonstrations close to the border fence and many are being killed. So, as with most other news stories from the Middle East, don't believe initial reports wherever they come from; and try to corroborate any information being fed to you by checking multiple sources.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/erdogan-blasts-israel-after-turkish-news-agency-in-gaza-bombed/