After thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies exploded in Lebanon, killing more than 20 and injuring thousands of people, many defense experts whispered in disbelief: Unit 8200. The number in Hebrew is pronounced as “shmone matayim.” A part of the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate, it is the cyber wing of the Israel Defence Forces. Though it works as a cyber wing of the Israeli Army, the infamous group is manned and controlled by the military intelligence group Mossad. Unit 8200 is compared to the US National Security Agency or Britain’s GCHQ. The largest single military unit in the Israel Defense Forces, it has been developed from early code-breaking and intelligence units formed at the birth of the state of Israel in 1948.
Unit 8200 Comes Under Scathing Attacks
Unit 8200 came under scathing attack in 2023 when it failed to gather prior information of the Hamas attack on Israeli’s kibbutz on October 7, 2023, when more than 1,200 Israeli citizens, mostly unarmed innocent civilians were killed, many women were sexually assaulted and more than 250 people were taken hostage.
Was Unit 8200’s Warning Ignored?
It was criticised for allegedly stopping listening to the Hamas radio network. It could have helped the Shin Bet understand the unusual preparations being taken by the Hamas. However, to the credit of Unit 8200, it was reported that a veteran analyst in Unit 8200 had warned about the potential Hamas mayhem in July, only to be dismissed as ‘totally imaginary’ by senior military personnel.
Earlier Attacks Of Unit 8200
If media reports are to be believed, Unit 8200 was behind the 2005-10 Stuxnet virus attack on Iranian nuclear centrifuges, disabling all the equipment for enrichment of Uranium. It is considered to be behind a cyber-attack on Lebanon’s state telecoms company Ogero in 2017. The Unit 8200 is also given credit for stopping an ISIS attack on a civilian airliner traveling from Australia to the United Arab Emirates in 2018.
Israel’s New Warfare
With explosions in the pagers and walkie-talkies on Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, the Jewish state has indicated in the most unambiguous terms that it would soon begin a new system of warfare and unleash its cyber warriors and secretive outfits like the Unit 8200.
Did Benjamin Netanyahu Approve Pager Explosions?
The pagers were exploded just two days after Israel’s security cabinet voted to achieve another war objective in its conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah. It voted on Monday to ensure the safe return of residents from communities along its border with Lebanon.
In a statement issued on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said, ‘Israel will continue to act to implement this objective.’
According to the US media, the Mossad and Unit 8200 had the prior approval of Benjamin Netanyahu, his senior government officials, and the heads of the intelligence services for carrying out the explosions in the pagers and the walkie-talkies. The entire operation was so secretive that even the topmost US officials were not informed about the attacks.
Is IDF Using AI?
If media reports are to be believed, the IDF uses a secretive and completely separate generative AI platform, similar to ChatGPT, to filter important threats from the unlimited amount of intelligence input their agents send them. The Israeli Army and the Mossad use these platforms to create a protection wall around themselves and insulate themselves from attacks.
IDF’s AI Facility In Beer Sheva
The IDF has built a facility in the Beer Sheva complex to develop and run these AI-supported military programmes. The Israeli Army has deployed about 14,000 of its troops to work on these AI platforms and keep an eye on the militants from Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, the state and non-state actors from China and Russia.
According to media reports, Mossad has incorporated AI technology into its interdiction machines, which assess threats from different sources. Smaller war rooms of Israel National Cyber Directorate’s Computer Emergency Response Team of Israel (CERT-IL) become active the moment these inputs are forwarded to them, they detect and kill them. CERT-IL has many war rooms in Beer Sheva, with their agents working there round the clock.
Mossad Learns Lessons From October 7 Failure
Coming under severe scathing attacks for failing to detect the October 7 attacks by Hamas, Mossad has learned lessons. According to media reports, the INCD came to know that Hamas was constantly innovating to target operational technology domains that control entities like power generation, oil and gas, water supply, medical health and data centers.
Now, they are working on it and developing the process to infiltrate into the Hamas domains to know their plans before they are executed.
The explosions in the pagers are simply indications of the things to come in the near future. It would be a mistake to think that the Mossad and the Unit 8200 carried out the attack to just target the Hamas militants. It may be the trial of their future warfare that may be unleashed in the future to wreck much greater havoc.
