The research in this book represents the first ever description of Hamas’s intelligence activity in its long-standing struggle against Israel from the 1980s to the present day. The analysis herein allows us to arrive at several important conclusions from various perspectives, both about the history of the Hamas-Israel conflict and, more broadly, about the function of intelligence in asymmetrical confrontations between states and violent non-state actors (VNSAs), including terrorist organizations.

The most fundamental conclusion of the research is the very existence of a continuous battle for intelligence between Hamas, a non-state entity, and the State of Israel. I have demonstrated how the organization has operated to gather intelligence since its inception, making clever use of the methods made possible by the nature of its activity, and has deployed this intelligence for its own ends. At the same time, it has also engaged in extensive counterintelligence measures to limit Israel’s intelligence activity within Hamas. The academic and security discourse has focused on intelligence campaigns between nations or on the challenges faced by nations in terms of intelligence when operating against terrorist organizations as VNSAs, taking an essentially unilateral view of such conflicts. This study makes it clear that there is an asymmetrical but mutual intelligence campaign between states and VNSAs, in which the latter intelligence activity representing the weaker side is of great significance and critically affects the way the struggle unfolds.

In general, we may distinguish the four major and interdependent factors that have had the most impact on the development of intelligence in Hamas: change within the organization itself; changes in the nature of the conflict and the organization’s areas of interest; the development of the weaponry used by the organization; and general technological advances. First, with regard to the organizational aspect, Hamas transitioned from single, isolated cells to a more orderly and regulated model of operations, and ultimately to the establishment of systematic quasi-military arrangements. This change led the organization to gradually adopt more structured patterns of conduct in all areas, including intelligence; thus, the gathering of intelligence became more comprehensive and professional, as did analysis and processing of intelligence and counterintelligence.

Secondly, at the same time, the nature of the conflict between Israel and the various terror groups grew more organized. When Israel maintained a presence in the Gaza Strip, the conflict was tactical in nature, as were Hamas’s intelligence needs. As Israel withdrew and the organization seized control, the warring sides were now on different sides of the border; this altered the nature of the confrontation, forcing Hamas to prepare for a large-scale clash with Israel and assess the probability of such a clash. Therefore, Hamas had no choice but to expand its intelligence collection and analysis to include operational and strategic intelligence. Furthermore, having seized control of the territory, the organization was now in a position to set up structures, such as forward observation posts, throughout the Gaza Strip. The effect of this new reality on Gaza is evident in comparison with the situation in the West Bank, where Hamas’s modus operandi stayed the same. Therefore, its intelligence activities failed to develop, and to this day are executed in virtually the same way that they were in the 1990s.

Thirdly, in tandem with these changes, Hamas’s weapons also became more sophisticated. At the start, the organization primarily made use of IEDs and gunfire, meaning that the intelligence needed to operate these weapons was primarily tactical and geographically adjacent to the organization’s centers of operation. With time, Hamas developed a rocket arsenal to fire at Israel’s home front. This also meant a gradual transition of its intelligence-gathering efforts to strategic targets within Israel, as well as the expansion of its data collection range to keep apace with the ever-growing range of its rockets. The need to gather intelligence deep inside Israel required adjustments to the organization’s collection methods, such as running agents and developing cyber capabilities.

Fourthly, in the field of cyberspace, as well as in other fields, one can see the impact of global technological developments on Hamas’s intelligence activities. Lacking a nation’s capacities for extensive, independent technological development, Hamas makes substantial use of technologies that were once reserved only for states but have become increasingly available to the public at large, such as UAVs, hacking, and the recruitment of agents through social media. These technologies, which enabled Hamas to operate more effectively and were swiftly integrated into its intelligence apparatus, and most of which are relatively affordable, significantly improved Hamas’s intelligence capacities and the quality of the intelligence gathered by the organization.

There is a palpable difference in Hamas’s intelligence activity in the two phases of its existence: before the mid-2000s, when it was a terror organization acting in cells and engaging only in tactical activity, and from the mid-2000s until the present, when the organization began to operate as an institution and even controlled territory. This difference is evident both in the organization’s construction of power and its use of power. Table C.1 shows Hamas’s methods for the gathering and employment of intelligence in the two main phases and time frames.

This development is also evident in the construction of the organization’s intelligence force, as seen in Table C.2.

The differences between the two periods are striking; they demonstrate that intelligence has become an integral element of Hamas’s overall activity. Any change or development in the organization’s operations affects and is affected by its intelligence.

On the whole, Hamas’s intelligence activities against Israel over the organization’s years of existence have led to palpable achievements. Hamas has learned to deploy diverse methods for collecting a range of data at the tactical and operational levels, which indicates continuous learning, creativity, and desire to act in every possible channel to attain information that will contribute to the organization’s activities. This has helped the organization to gain significant, valuable intelligence that has led to considerable operational successes. As evidenced by Table C.2, until the mid-2000s, there was not a significant intelligence component included in each one of the organization’s tactical operations. Still, in many dozens of attacks – some carried out by more sophisticated cells run by the organization, e.g., the Silwan cell – the intelligence aspect was instrumental to its ability to execute “high-quality” actions.

Strategically, however, it is obvious that Hamas lacked access to the closely guarded intelligence of Israel’s decision-makers. To reach the small circle in which Israel’s strategic decisions are made would require highly advanced intelligence capabilities that Hamas, as a non-state entity, does not yet possess. Therefore, Hamas’s assessments of Israel at the strategic level are based on a combination of the organization’s fundamental assumptions about Israel and Jewish society, lessons learned from experience, and OSINT collection. This has hampered the organization a number of times throughout the conflict and caused it to misread the strategic map, so that Hamas has been left vulnerable to surprise and suffered severe blows.

In this context, two points are worth noting: Firstly, as we know, strategic assessment of an enemy’s expected action is extremely difficult for any intelligence organization, especially when it comes to a future decision or a development about which there is no real intelligence. Thus, the limitations faced by Hamas in assessing strategic intelligence are compounded by the inherent difficulty of this type of intelligence work. Secondly, looking into the future, we see that Hamas makes extensive use of cyberspace for diverse intelligence needs. This dimension may gradually allow Hamas to obtain information on the strategic level and even approach the core of Israel’s state secrets, thus enriching the knowledge base it uses when making strategic assessments about Israel.

With regard to cyberspace, it should be stated that, for Hamas, this dimension solves an essential problem in terms of its operations. Since Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005, and all the more since Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, the Strip has been almost hermetically sealed off from the rest of the world. While the organization has occasionally managed to establish contact with the world outside of Gaza, such as through the smuggling tunnels or through Hamas operatives overseas, Gaza’s isolation has largely made it very difficult for Hamas to construct and operate a force in the field of intelligence. Cyberspace, however, where geography serves as no constraint and physical borders are irrelevant, is ideal for the organization and for activities in which it would otherwise be unable to engage. The ability to operate from within the Gaza Strip in relation to every other location around the globe through the internet also allows Hamas to operate intelligence at low risk and with a high survival rate.

An essential point in understanding Hamas’s intelligence campaign against Israel is the asymmetrical nature of the confrontation: The scope and capabilities of Israel’s intelligence are significantly larger than those of Hamas. Therefore, since its inception, Hamas has concentrated on concealment and counterintelligence. Terrorist organizations survive only if they can operate in secret, a fact understood by Hamas from the outset. Without a doubt, the quantitative and qualitative advantage of Israel’s intelligence has often overtaken Hamas’s ability to remain clandestine, but in many cases the organization has successfully and productively used effective concealment to keep Israeli intelligence services from attaining closely guarded organizational intelligence. This was evident in Hamas’s ability to prevent Israel from accessing the abducted soldier Gilad Shalit throughout his years of captivity, an operation that culminated in a spectacular achievement for the organization – a prisoner swap that freed more than 1,000 Palestinian inmates from Israeli prisons. In this field, there is abundant evidence that Hamas continuously studies and tracks Israel’s intelligence capabilities and methods of operation, formulating lessons from every incident in which organizational ranks are breached. Similarly, in some cases, security breaches have been creatively exploited to turn risks into opportunities, such as doubling exposed agents and using them against Israel.

The asymmetry of the intelligence warfare is obvious merely from the fact that Israel has state power while Hamas is a non-state organization. However, it is also evident in the difference between the nature of Israel’s regime and society compared to the Gaza Strip, and in the IDF’s organized and institutionalized operations compared to those of Hamas. Here, the asymmetry is flipped. Hamas takes maximal advantage of the fact that its enemy, Israel, is a state – in particular, one with a democratic regime. As it is the army of a state, the IDF maintains an orderly, organized manner of operations, based on relatively fixed procedures and protocols. This makes it possible to map its activities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and identify weaknesses that can be exploited to attack both civilians and soldiers. Moreover, because Israel is a democracy, the freedom of the press enjoyed by Israel’s mass media, even on military and security matters, has made it possible for Hamas to cheaply and easily attain highly valuable OSINT about Israel and the army, from tactical to strategic intelligence matters. The freedom and openness of Israeli society means that soldiers can easily be accessed through social media platforms, and that normally closed army bases may be penetrated through soldiers’ smartphones. Hamas has also exploited Israel’s democratic nature by hiding behind civilian facades to lend a veneer of innocence to its activities, a prominent characteristic in its conduct in general and in the field of intelligence; the organization knows that Israel’s hands are legally and morally tied, as Israel will find it hard to impede any efforts made under a civilian or humanitarian guise.

Another aspect related to the asymmetrical nature of the fighting is Hamas’s occasional use of intelligence activity for propaganda and psychological warfare. When the organization finds it convenient and can do so without revealing confidential information, it has, over the years, circulated details of its intelligence activities and findings in its own media. Hamas made public incidents of Israeli agents it had managed to double and UAVs it operated, and revealed examples of Israeli intelligence exposed by Hamas counterintelligence bodies. Some of these were edited and produced at a sophisticated level for external consumption. The target audience of these messages is twofold: They are first and foremost aimed at Palestinian society as part of Hamas’s public-facing propaganda, meant to present the organization as equal to Israel’s fabled intelligence services. At the same time, they are also aimed at Israel and the IDF as part of Hamas’s psychological warfare, to undermine Israel’s trust in its intelligence services and their superiority.

This research raises the crucial obligation of nations facing VNSAs, especially terrorist organizations, to take into account the intelligence threat they face from these actors, both in their situation assessments and in their counterintelligence efforts. Furthermore, they must also consider all platforms and alternatives for actively confronting hostile intelligence operations. Proof of Hamas’s development in the field of intelligence and its ramifications may be found in the fact that Israel has recognized the threat, at least in part; this recognition has affected how Israel operates, both in countering threats and in taking advantage of opportunities. Examples of the latter include misdirection in response to Hamas’s intelligence collection efforts, which Israel has succeeded in pulling off several times, as well as attacks carried out by Israel to destroy physical infrastructures and thwart the organization’s cyber operatives.

Moreover, the maintenance of superior intelligence is critical for nations to realize their advantage and reduce the threat they face from VNSAs. Hence, nations must carefully study the counterintelligence efforts of VNSAs; these comprise not only passive security and concealment but also more sophisticated, active efforts, such as doubling agents and deception. All this must be weighed while conducting an intelligence campaign.

This study shows that a full analysis of VNSAs in general, and terrorist organizations in particular, requires a substantial focus on the intelligence component of their activity. These organizations incorporate intelligence – albeit perhaps less institutionalized or organized than is common among nations – into their activity on various levels, tactical and operational, and draw on this intelligence in making strategic decisions as well. These organizations manage to attain successes in the field of intelligence that may serve them as VNSAs in asymmetrical campaigns. Of course, this is not to ignore the gap in existing intelligence capabilities; however, as is always true in such confrontations, the absence of a defeat in a campaign is the same as victory for the weaker side. One must not devalue the importance of the intelligence successes achieved by organizations of this kind, both in terms of collecting and exposing the state’s intel and in terms of circumventing its efforts to expose their secrets.

Here, it is important to highlight one of the significant challenges faced by any intelligence organization when dealing with its subjects of collection and analysis: the projection fallacy. According to this fallacy, individuals or organizations tend to project their own ways of thinking and concepts onto others who are different from them, instead of learning about the other side in the most neutral way possible. In the context of this book, state intelligence and counterintelligence agencies are accustomed to thinking in state-centric terms and assigning importance to the intelligence activities of the other side and the information it reveals based on these criteria. However, as presented throughout the book, non-state actors conduct intelligence differently, their intelligence requirements are different, and they can derive valuable information from what states might consider unclassified or insignificant information. Therefore, state intelligence agencies must, as much as possible, shed their state-centric thinking and work to clear prejudices and assumptions to “get into the heads” of the intelligence activity of non-state actors in a clean and truthful manner. This is the basic condition and the most important component in correctly assessing the intelligence threat and adjusting counterintelligence policies accordingly.

The present era is often called the “information age”: an epoch in which information is of utmost importance, as is the ability to attain, organize, and process it. Therefore, intelligence has been and will continue to be crucial to the success of any organization that wishes to survive and to achieve its goals. Hamas’s intelligence campaign against Israel, as presented here, clearly demonstrates that an extensive, comprehensive war of intelligence exists mutually in every conflict – even among VNSAs, in accordance with the nature of their activity. The intelligence efforts of VNSAs should not be viewed on the same scale of absolute values as those of states, because obviously they do not reach the latter in impact and quality. Nonetheless, it behooves us to consider whether the intelligence operated by a VNSA – despite its limitations – serves the actor’s goals. The story of Hamas’s intelligence warfare against Israel presented in this book demonstrates that, in this case, the question may be answered in the affirmative.