Israel is exploiting its control over the Palestinian communications network and the Internet to manage its wars with Gaza. It has restricted the network’s work and its ability to develop and independence through the agreements signed with the Palestinian Authority.
Israel also uses this control in managing its hostile operations to carry out its air strikes or to pursue and liquidate resistance fighters, or even by stirring up discord and rumors to destabilize the home front, according to Palestinian experts.
Abu al-Amir, the guard of the Sunrise Tower in Gaza, says that he received a phone call from a person who introduced himself as from the Israeli army - and he spoke Arabic well - and he said to him, “You have 10 minutes asking everyone to evacuate. We will bomb the tower .. Evacuate quickly or die.” A few minutes later Indeed, the missiles flattened the tower.
Israeli intelligence contacts residents in the Gaza Strip and gives them minutes to evacuate their homes in preparation for bombing and destroying them (Reuters)
A cyber hack
Mahmoud Abu Ghosh, a communications and information security expert, says that Israel realized early in the negotiations with the Palestinian Authority the importance of communications, and placed restrictions on the work of the Palestinian telecommunications and Internet companies that link them to the infrastructure of the central Israeli telecommunications network, making it a "hostage" and under permanent supervision.
Abu Ghosh added to Al-Jazeera Net that according to this, the control units of the Palestinian networks are located in areas under Israeli control, which allows the occupation to easily penetrate the Palestinian communication and internet system, obtain the information it wants and monitor everything that goes on through it.
According to Abu Ghosh, this situation becomes more dangerous during times of war, as the occupation army resorts to using data from landline and mobile phone numbers, and employing data, to manage the military confrontation.
Abu Ghosh gave an example of what happened recently in Jerusalem, as well as what happened last night in the northern Gaza Strip, where Israel determines the numbers for the intended geographical area according to artificial intelligence technology, and directs it to direct calls or text messages aimed at spreading fear.
In previous times, Palestinians had received text messages on their mobile phones saying, "You have been classified as participating in hostilities, and you will be liquidated."
The resistance is electronically released
Abu Ghosh believes that complete liberation from Israeli control of Palestinian communications is very difficult due to practical conditions and the restrictions of the signed agreements. However, the resistance factions have achieved tangible success in establishing their own communications network covering the Gaza Strip, which complicates Israel's task of spying on it and tracking its movements.
The communications network of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, and the Al-Quds Brigades affiliated with the Islamic Jihad movement have proven their effectiveness during the current confrontation with Israel and in previous rounds of escalation that they are not penetrating.
The Qassam Brigades discovered about two years ago a special Israeli cell that infiltrated into Gaza through the security fence with the aim of implanting devices to penetrate the internal communication network, and it succeeded in killing the cell leader and thwarting its mission.
And it seemed remarkable since the 2014 war that there has been a significant decline in Israel's ability to target the missile unit militants, and this is evident in the current war during which the launching of missiles has not stopped despite the intense flight of warplanes and reconnaissance drones.
Abu Ghosh attributes this to the remarkable development on the part of the resistance, and its reliance on its own communication networks to manage its affairs through secure communication, which has made it more complicated to monitor and withhold information from Israel.
The residents of the Gaza Strip are facing two types of contacts: either real that ends with bombing houses, or fake that is part of a psychological war (Reuters)
Occupation contacts
The communications of the occupation army during the wars and military confrontations in Gaza take one of two forms, either real or fake communications, and the expert in strategic and military affairs, retired Major General Rafiq Abu Hani, explained to Al-Jazeera Net the real communications as an attempt to put pressure on the home front in order to break the people's will.
One of this is that it directs instructions and directives by contacting specific individuals, for example its contact with the guard towers before bombing and destroying them, and for this it chooses towers that have importance in terms of value and "spatial dimension", to leave their impact on people as they see them collapsing on the ground.
As for the fake communications, Abu Hani puts it in the context of "psychological warfare" and an attempt to spread terror among civilians and deny them safety. They are usually carried out by agents of the occupation who are assigned to work on mixing up the papers of the home front and spreading false rumors.