The depth of the Hamas terror group’s cyber breach of Israel’s internal systems was more successful than realized, as Israel’s Channel 12 revealed for the first time on Sunday materials captured from Hamas computers.

For years prior to the Oct. 7, 2023 invasion, Hamas had accessed information from security cameras of Israeli communities bordering the Gaza Strip, together with computers of local regional authorities.

“Think for a moment what would happen if Hamas could see you almost everywhere you are, and could follow every step of the heads of the regional authorities and the security officers—of each and every one of you. Well, this is exactly what happened for years until Oct. 7,” said Channel 12 reporter Almog Boker.

A November 2020 document found on a Hamas computer showed that the terror group had obtained the IP (internet protocol) addresses of Gaza envelope security cameras.

“These security cameras were classified as important and recorded almost everything that happened at critical points in the [Gaza] envelope around the clock,” Boker said.

The terror group could follow everything in the communities of Kfar Gaza, Sha’ar Hanegev, the city of Sderot and along the Ashkelon coast.

“Two years ago, I received a video from Hamas about myself,” Amnon Ziv, chief security officer of the Hof Ashkelon region, told Channel 12. “They downloaded a picture from Facebook, and at the end of the 10-second video, it also said, ‘We’ll get to you.'”

“No one knew,” said Ziv, who added that Hamas received “free gifts” from Israelis who didn’t protect information they posted on chat applications like WhatsApp and Telegram.

Hamas also had the names and telephone numbers of all the security heads in the Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council, and the home addresses of the heads of the regional councils.

Ofir Lipstein of the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council was murdered near his home. Tamir Idan, the head of the Sdot Negev Regional Council, escaped an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) attack and Gadi Yarkoni, until recently the head of the Eshkol Regional Council, said that terrorists went to his old address.

“They didn’t have new information because I moved house three years before the incident and they arrived at my old house. The army did not warn me at all, did not say [anything], did not hint to me. I’m surprised they didn’t know about it,” Yarkoni said.

The report noted that during the Oct. 7 invasion, Hamas terrorists raided public areas in the settlements. “This was no accident,” Boker reported, noting a document from 2016 identifying all the public spaces: kindergartens, clinics, libraries, police stations and synagogues.

“These documents show that [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar’s planning had been going on since at least 2016—seven years in which Hamas studied us, followed our every step, planned and knew everything about us,” Boker concluded.

Image - IDF