The IDF brought the Jerusalem Post and some other media outlets on Thursday for a special visit of military intelligence‘s office to collect items seized from Hamas for inspecting, cataloging, and translating into operational intelligence.
Since October 7, the office of around 350 personnel, the majority reservists, has sorted through over 65 million electronic files and 500,000 physical documents, with the current rate of new incoming electronic files reaching the region of one million per day.
Using the IDF intelligence catalog office’s conclusions, there have been a huge number of instances where IDF soldiers in the field were saved from Hamas ambushes.
For example, physical maps and electronic files have revealed to the IDF many of the places where Hamas has concealed tunnel shafts and spots for sharpshooters set up for ambushes.
In one instance, a Hamas map was seized by IDF Division 36 from an aid to Hamas Shejaia battalion commander Wessam Farhat which IDF intelligence Unit 9900 succeeded in translating into an operation to attack specific tunnel ambush points.
IDF engineering then coordinated the destruction of the tunnel.
Findings are helpful to soldiers in the field
The IDF played an audio file during the visit to their base in which soldiers in the field thanked the intelligence catalog unit for essentially saving their lives from what would have been an almost certain ambush.
In another case, IDF Division soldiers in the field seized and sent to the intelligence catalog unit physical documents indicating where improvised explosives had been concealed in the Beit Hanoun area.
After the intelligence catalog unit decoded and translated the documents, they sent information back to field units which were able to neutralize the IEDs.
In 2018, the intelligence catalog unit was closed because it was not been used sufficiently in the years since 2013 and before.
A small subunit of the intelligence catalog unit had remained functional, set aside within another large portion of the IDF intelligence branch.
But in a very short time after October 7, the huge volunteering spirit of reservists helped reestablish the unit and quickly reach its current level of 350 highly trained officials.
Most documents are analyzed by four different experts: one in Arabic, one in mapping and the Gaza landscape, one who understands the general fighting and tactical needs of IDF forces in the field, and one who has the expertise for how to actually submit the distilled information to IDF officers in the field in real-time.
In some cases, top IDF officials leading the unit have directly contacted the battalion and other officers in the field, leapfrogging the usual channels and chains of command to likely save lives since a delay of minutes or hours might be too late.
For example, there have been cases where the entire maneuvering strategy of an IDF Division or battalion was altered based on information from the unit.
Another item found by the unit was Hamas’s close following of protests relating to the judicial overhaul debate in Israel.
In a broader sense, some information from the unit can even alter the general directives and strategy employed by the security cabinet.
The unit has not been surprised by many of Hamas’s tunnels but has been surprised by the full scope of the tunnels, and sometimes the intelligence it has gathered in real-time helped locate tunnels more exactly, whereas prior intelligence only gave a general location.
The physical catalog area itself and the computer area for cracking and deciphering certain information that the Post visited were significant, with substantial well-trained staff working simultaneously at both tasks.
These reservists have been at work for months and expressed readiness to continue their roles for an indefinite period despite their need to run businesses and maintain their families.
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