Israel claims to have destroyed Hamas cyber operations center

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claim to have attacked a building that served as the cyber operations headquarter of the Palestinian jihad movement Hamas last weekend. As reported amongst the cybersecurity community, IDF bombed the building after a joint operation with the Israel Security Agency (known as Shin Bet).

The IDF has also ensured that this joint operation is part of reprisals for the cyber attack on various Israeli infrastructures, perpetrated by Hamas. If this incident is confirmed, this could be the first time that a government took physical retaliation to respond to a cyber attack.

“There seems to be no history of the use of military force against a computer-attack campaign”, said experts in cybersecurity. Hamas’s alleged cyber operations center is in Palestine and, according to Israeli government claims, the facilities were bombed after a clash in which around 900 rockets were detonated; finally, the ceasefire arrived at around 4 a.m. the following day, by intervention of the Egyptian government.

The international press has reported that at least 4 Israeli civilians and 30 Palestinians were killed as a result of the clash, as well as at least one hundred wounded.

The IDF report adds that this agency thwarted a cyberattack attempt this same weekend; in detecting the origin of the attack, the IDF arrived at the aforementioned facilities; according to cybersecurity specialists, Israel has not mentioned more details about the alleged cyberattack.

According to experts from the International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS), an IDF spokesman stated that, at least at this very moment, Hamas has run out of resources to deploy cyber-war activities; “Hamas’s cyber operations center has been destroyed”, the spokesman concluded.

Although the information has not been corroborated by other sources, the U.S. government has already shown its support to Israel, its main ally in that region of the world.