Pierluigi Paganini May 06, 2019

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a physical attack on Hamas It could be the first time that a state responds with a conventional strike to a cyber attack.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has launched a physical attack on Hamas in response to an alleged cyber attack. A strike launched by Israeli forces targeted a building in the Gaza Strip that was hosting Hamas cyber army.

The IDF adopted a hybrid approach, it first stopped the cyber attack carried out by Hamas, then once it has localized the source of the offensive launched an airstrike.

The IDF is claiming to have wiped out Hamas’ cyber operational capabilities.

The attack could be considered a milestone in modern warfare because it is the first time a cyber attack has been met with an immediate physical air strike.

Israeli officials did not disclose details of the cyberattacks launched by Hamas cyber forces, they only confirmed to have stopped it.

In 2015 another case made the headline, US military killed the
British ISIS hacker Junaid Hussain in a targeted drone strike.
The US intelligence believes that the jihadist hacker was behind a number of cyber attacks, including the one that hit the Central Command websites and its Twitter accounts and the dump of personal details of US military forces online.

Hussain was responsible for “releasing personally identifying information of approximately 1,300 US military and government employees and specifically sought to direct violence against US service members and government employees.”

The two operations are quite different because the attack carried out by the IDF represents an immediate retaliation to Hamas’s cyber operations against the state of Israel.

“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.”

“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.”

In an interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo approved the military response of Isreal.

“It looks pretty serious. Now the number is over 400 rockets that we can validate have been fired. The Israelis have every right to defend themselves. I’ve seen video that we can’t validate just yet but where there have been strikes on homes, civilian populations. These rockets were fired with civilians around them in order to protect from return fire. This is terrible.” said Pompeo. “The Israelis have every right to protect the sovereignty of their nation, and I hope that we can return to the ceasefire that had been in place for weeks and had been holding significantly before this. “

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – IDF, Hamas)

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