“Our first known operation was the pizzerias,” said Lt. Col. D., commander of the Countermeasure branch at the IDF’s Central Command.
The new unit was established following October 7 as a unique array combining intelligence collection and legal experts to fight Hamas's influence in the West Bank.
The pizzerias D. was referring to are several venues in the West Banks that exploited photos of elderly hostages being taken captive to promote their sales. They were quickly sealed off, and the owners were prosecuted for incitement. “We have seen that the more you identify and act quickly in the face of a difficult phenomenon, the more you can make a change in the field,” he explained.
D. added that their main guiding thought was how it was possible to do as much harm to Hamas as an organization “though as an idea, it is slightly more difficult,” he admitted. “We decided to take on the fields of incitement, printing houses, terror funds. The little everyday things, everything that allows this terror organization to prosper and exacerbate. Today there are over 45 people in criminal proceedings for these issues. Some were sent to prison and then were immediately released during the first hostage for the terrorist deal, but all others are in prison.”
“We serve directly under the commanding General Officer Commanding,” continued D. “What is most unique about us is that we work as a roundtable in cooperation with the Shin Bet, Police, Prosecutors and Legal Counselors. We have a literal table where we sit and talk about everything, from targets for terror funding, to digital wallets, selling of weapons and incitement. We don't want to create a revolving door effect, and our goal is to bring anyone who we identify as operating in these fields to justice, so they end up behind bars.”
D. explained that, when working together with prosecutors, interrogators, and other authorities, it is easier to connect the dots and work in synergy to thwart as many threats as possible. “We attempt to foil not the terrorists, but rather the enablers of terrorism,” he added.
“All of these topics were once being scrutinized in separate, not in the form of a synchronized array,” explained D. “Some dealt with terror funds; incitement was not even scrutinized, nor was the topic of printing houses. We have now combined areas together into the same sections and have been moving forward with them for over eight months.”
The team proudly boasts officers and soldiers from all shades of the population, including ultra-Orthodox, religious, and secular. “Arabic speakers are also highly involved and aid a lot by accompanying operations and sharing and mining data and material,” explained D.
From incitement to terror funding
According to D., there is simply no limit to incitement. “We see that it's cross-generational, from the age of 15 to the age of 60. It’s also regardless of profession. Doctors, teachers, school principals, students, nurses. This is a painful reality, but there is virtually no sector that isn’t engaged in a form of incitement. For this reason, we are making sure to deal with incitement in a rigid manner, in cooperation with authorities in Judea and Samaria, including the local Prosecutor's Office, Legal Counsel, investigative body of the Border Patrol, and the police.”
As for the question of what exactly counts as incitement, D. commented: “We wrote an intelligence study at the beginning of the war about the exact definition, along with an accompanying attorney. Of course, not everyone is arrested – only those who boast sufficient evidentiary infrastructure to enter behind bars.”
Examples of this vary, from the daughters of Salah al-Aruri, which echoed Hamas’s terrorist propaganda, to a doctor at Ichilov hospital, “who on the one hand treats Jews and on the other hand incites to murder them,” added D. seriously. “School principals are taken especially seriously. My expectation is that they would teach coexistence, not instruct how to kill and harm Jews. Much of the spotlight is put there, and there are various platforms that are used to expose the main ones, including but not limited to social media.”
Regarding the question of the effectiveness of arrests and exposure for halting incitement, D answered that it’s not definitive but somewhere in the middle. “Everyone who is arrested for incitement has no problem in confessing. Some add that they would even murder Jews themselves, and this is a good time to remind them that a confession is not tantamount to an apology. Some Justified the October 7 massacre, and this, of course, only adds more evidence to our case. We’ve monitored some of those who were released from prison, and we see that some have stopped their incitement.”
“As for terror funding, we are seeking to damage its very infrastructure,” continued D. “The Iran-Hamas axis is trying to increase their influence in Judea and Samaria, and much of this is done through the transfer of funds. We try to stop them on the way or at the destination, and this includes regular and cryptocurrencies,” he added.
“We established a team with the police and the Shin Bet to incriminate as many actors as possible in the field, individuals as well as money exchange houses. As part of the legal procedure, an impermissible association edict is issued in accordance with a general's order, and the funds are confiscated. Up until now we’ve seized over NIS 40 million, all meant to fund terror.”
D. stressed that his team makes a clear separation between exchange offices that serve the public and exchange offices that serve terrorism. “Whoever allows terrorist money to be brought in, be it physical or digital – we will get to them without affecting the ordinary citizen’s access to services.” Likewise, as with any IDF unit, Israeli citizens are not the object of D.’s team, neither Arabs nor Jews. “Only Palestinians, and only if we can prove their involvement in court,” he stresses definitively.
A new and troubling issue that D.’s team has been working on is the one of fertilizers “We are talking about chemical compounds, allegedly meant for fertilizers, which in fact end up being used for creating explosives. As a response, we take this issue and apply the same methodology with all the players involved. We generate information, and where there is a problem, we will be there. Only three weeks ago, there was an operation in this field led by the Judea and Samaria division, which played out successfully.”
“My message to everyone is: don’t lose hope. We lost hope on October 7, but we are still strong, and we are working together more than ever so that there will not be another October 7 in Israel ever again.”