There has been a lot of talk about Hamas tunnels, but how does the IDF know where they are and destroy them? The simple answer, rummaging through Hamas hideouts, involves very painstaking work on the part of the Documents and Technical Equipment Collection Unit of the Intelligence Directorate.
The IDF found over 65 million files and half a million documents, operational plans and Hamas fighting methods. The documents were found in the Hamas hideouts captured by Israel. They are cataloged by the Documents and Technical Resources Collection Unit of the Intelligence Directorate. Unit created to guarantee the safety of Israeli soldiers.
The Documents and Technical Assets Collection Unit of the Intelligence Directorate (J2) has coordinated the collection and examination of Hamas assets since the beginning of the war and the ground operation. The unit is mainly made up of reservists and its job is to extract information from the resources collected by all soldiers in the field. The unit analyzes and concludes operational implications that improve soldier activity in the Gaza Strip. In this way, the unit contributes to the extraction of intelligence and its return for operational purposes, and at the same time helps maintain the safety of IDF soldiers.
Since the beginning of the war, thousands of documents and technical resources have been collected by IDF soldiers, and then transferred to the extraction team who found critical information there. The IDF’s operations in Hamas strongholds and the transfer of resources to the Document Collection Unit and technical means for in-depth research, add a significant layer to the intelligence assessment from the tactical to strategic level and enable intelligence information to return to the operational end. The materials are examined based on their typology and in collaboration with various intelligence collection and research bodies, 7 Israel News reported.
Among the documents found is a map of tunnel shafts seized by the 252nd Division from the residence of a company commander of Hamas’s Beit Hanoun battalion. A key that explains how the map was located and picked up by the division at another agent’s residence. With the arrival of the materials to the research group, the important connection was created between the map and the wss key, allowing the tunnel shafts, many of which were destroyed, to be identified in the field.
A Hamas map on which the tunnel shafts are marked was acquired by the research group of the Documents and Technical Means Collection Unit, found by the 36th division in the residence of the accomplice of the Shejaiya battalion commander, Wissam Farhat. After initial processing in Unit 9900, the information was relayed to soldiers in the field, the tunnel shaft was identified near IDF soldiers and was neutralized by combat engineering soldiers.
Furthermore, a document with the location of the explosives in the Beit Hanoun area was seized. After examination by the Document Collection and Technical Means Unit, the operational forces moved to the area and neutralized the explosives.
Antonio Albanese e Graziella Giangiulio
