Leaked documents reveal plans for extensive Russian influence campaign in Israel
September 30, 2024 4 Comments
LEAKED INFORMATION PUBLISHED BY leading German media outlets has revealed Russia’s plans for an influence campaign targeting Israel. The information was leaked earlier this month by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and German television stations Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) and Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), as well as by Israeli news outlets. It allegedly came from Social Design Agency (SDA), a Moscow-based firm hired by the Kremlin, which operates in Israel and several countries in the West.
Founded in 2017, the SDA is reportedly one of a host of firms and organizations that are collaborating with Russian intelligence in its efforts to influence public opinion worldwide. Earlier this year, the United States imposed sanctions on SDA, “for providing services to the government of Russia in connection with a foreign malign influence campaign”. The SDA’s founder is Ilya Gambashidze, who is said to be in direct contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Kremlin officials.
Israel has been a central target of SDA’s Russian influence campaign. The country’s internal situation, with mass demonstrations against the legal reform is “perfect for launching a campaign to influence public opinion”, an SDA document from 2023 reads. The document accurately describes the political and social situation in Israel and names a number of influential Russian expatriates whose activities should be monitored.
According to the leaked documents, the purpose of the planned campaign was to raise support for Russia in its war against Ukraine, and strengthen the proportion of Israelis who espouse anti-Ukrainian sentiments. Another central goal was to ensure that no party in the Knesset —the Israeli
parliament— would support a possible transfer of military aid to Ukraine.
From the documents, it appears that the conclusions formulated by the SDA were infused into around 50 cartoons distributed every month on social networks, around 20 fictitious articles appearing on websites pretending to be legitimate, and many reactions on various social networks. Among other things, the company distributed through paid ads on Facebook cartoons showing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky burning the Israeli flag, as well as cartoons accusing Israeli leftists of supporting Hamas.
One of the main revelations of the recent leaks is that the Arab community in Israel constitutes a target of the Russian influence campaign. For example, a fake Arabic-language article that was circulated online claimed that Israel did not have in its possession enough precision weapons, because it had given them to Ukraine. The article went on to claim that the lack of such weapons would lead to failures on the battlefield. “The good news should be heard by all believers living under occupation”, the article states. “The policy of the occupation government will soon lead to its defeat. We will wait for a spark to ignite our war of liberation, in which the entire Muslim world will support us”. The purpose of the article appears to be to prompt the Israeli-Arab population to turn against the Israeli government based on Israel’s alleged weakness, and to support Israel’s enemies. Read more of this post
SEVERAL WEEKS AGO, ISRAEL’S Minister of Diaspora Affairs, Amichai Chikli, reportedly met with the chief executive officer (CEO) of Israeli private intelligence company Black Cube. 
THE OFFICIAL INTERNAL INVESTIGATION into the performance of Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate (MID) during the run-up to the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, has been released. Known as The Road to War, the report addresses the central question of: how did the MID –the main military intelligence body of the Israel Defense Forces, or IDF– miss all the signs of the pending Hamas attack, and how did all the available warnings go unheeded?
THE TARGETED KILLING OF Hassan Mahdawi, a high-ranking member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the commander of the Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon, was carried out by Israel on April 1, 2024. The actual assassination was based on precise operational intelligence, while Israel’s assessment of Iran’s response was wrong.
ON MARCH 23, CHANNEL 12 of Israeli television aired a remarkable interview with Sassi Elya, the former director of technology at the Israel Security Agency (ISA). Better known by the acronyms Shin Bet or Shabak, the ISA is Israel’s domestic security service. The interview had initially been scheduled for broadcast as part of the evening news on October 7, 2023. However, its airing was canceled due to the attack on Israel by Hamas, which occurred that morning.
SINCE OCTOBER 7, 2024, when Israel was caught off guard by a sudden and highly damaging attack from Hamas, more information has surfaced regarding why there was no prior warning about the attack and the failures of Israeli intelligence in this regard.
capabilities. Another important insight is that the counterintelligence structures inside Hamas were successful in preventing Israeli intelligence from recruiting agents who were close enough to Sinwar to be able to alert Israel about the impending attack. Furthermore, Israel’s collection and analysis of signals intelligence was unproductive, possibly because Hamas was successful in countering Israel’s ability to produce effective intelligence from signals intercepts.
A RETIRED SENIOR MOSSAD official has alleged that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly ignored, and even frustrated, efforts to stop the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars to Hamas. This inaction may have enabled the Palestinian militant group to plan, organize and execute Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, which killed over 1400 Israelis on October 7, 2023, and sparked the current war between Israel and Hamas.
THE OCTOBER 7 ATTACK on Israel was a total surprise. There was no warning. There were very few signs of a possible attack. Israeli intelligence evaluated these signs as elements of a routine military exercise by Hamas, and even assessed them as parts of an imaginary scenario. It therefore gave no warning to those Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) units that were stationed on the border with Gaza. Meanwhile, what we know about the intelligence failure of October 7 will likely pale before what the commission of inquiry will reveal once it is established. That was precisely what happened in the case of the Agranat Commission of Inquiry, which made significant revelations while investigating the intelligence failings of the IDF in the run up to the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
time, in the first two days of the conflict the IDF was confused and acted without direction, in the apparent absence of relevant action plans for what to do in the event of a massive invasion. The IDF was clearly not ready for such a scenario.
for those conclusions to become public. What is to be done in the meantime? There is public pressure to launch the inquiry soon.
MIDDLE EAST OBSERVERS WERE hardly surprised by yesterday’s news of the apparent assassination of Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in Lebanon. Not only was al-Arouri a 
Yesterday’s assassination at the very heart of Hezbollah’s lair was nothing short of a demonstration of the Mossad’s competency in special operations.
IT HAS BECOME CLEAR that Hamas had up-to-date intelligence on Israeli targets prior to the attack on October 7, 2023, the largest and most devastating terrorist attack in Israel’s history. Hamas did not have access to clandestine information sources but rather relied on open-source intelligence (OSINT) to understand the structure and weaknesses of Israel’s defense system along the border fence. In addition to publicly available maps, Hamas meticulously gathered online intelligence about specific sites within the Israeli communities near the Gaza Strip.
interests of national security, the public’s ‘right to know’ purview is substantial. Thus, significant amounts of information are available online.
the Israeli Military Intelligence was dissolved, for reasons that remain to be investigated. CNN was among many news outlets that have 
SINCE OCTOBER 7, WHEN Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israel, many more details about the intelligence failure have emerged. It appears that Israeli intelligence officials have warned for years about military exercises held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which have included practice raids on cities deep inside Israel. However, the Israel Military Intelligence (IMI) did not heed to the warnings, because it considered Hamas operationally incapable of carrying out such raids. Instead, the IMI estimated that the Hamas leadership aimed to arrive at a settlement with Israel. That seems like the result of a highly successful disinformation operation, which added significantly to the effectiveness of the sudden attack on Israel on October 7.
large number of settlements simultaneously. It also believed that such an operation would go against the spirit of Hamas leadership’s spirit intention to settle with Israel.
Indeed, a preventive course of action should have been in place even in the absence of specific intelligence warnings —if only to enable the IDF to repel a surprise attack by Hamas. There was no need to estimate what Hamas would do in order to prepare for a surprise attack.
ARGUABLY NO COUNTRY BENEFITED more from the American invasion of Iraq than the Islamic Republic of Iran. In a war that lasted over a decade, Washington spent over 
branch of the Iranian Armed Forces that protects and promotes the ideological inheritance of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
SEVERAL DAYS HAVE PASSED since October 7, the day when Hamas stunned Israel with a surprise attack against several settlements near the Gaza border. It is now clear that Israeli intelligence was in possession of warning indicators about the attack, and that these indicators were misjudged.
forwarded to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office. The Israeli newspaper that 
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Israeli citizens arrested on suspicion of working for Iranian intelligence
October 28, 2024 by intelNews 2 Comments
Israeli authorities accuse the suspects of photographing and collecting information on military bases and facilities, including Air Force bases, Iron Dome battery sites, a power plant, and other energy infrastructure facilities. The suspects are also accused of having received from their Iranian handlers a set of maps of Israeli strategic sites, including the Golani Brigade’s training base, where four Israeli soldiers were killed by a drone attack last week. In over two years, the suspects allegedly performed approximately 600 missions under the direction of two handlers from Iranian intelligence. They did so in return for hundreds of thousands of shekels, which were paid to them in cash and various crypto-currencies.
Another Israeli citizen, who was arrested on suspicion of spying for Iranian intelligence in return for payments, has been named as Vladimir Varehovsky, 35, from Tel Aviv. Among other tasks, Varehovsky is suspected of gathering information about an Israeli scientist, whom he agreed to murder in exchange for a $100,000 payment. The suspect had reportedly acquired weapons for the assigned task, but the ISA arrested him before he could carry it out.
In another counterintelligence operation, the ISA arrested seven young Palestinians from the east of Jerusalem, who have been charged with working for Iranian Intelligence. The main suspect recruited the other six to carry out tasks for a fee. Tasks included setting cars on fire, gathering information about a city mayor in Israel, and plotting to assassinate one of the country’s top scientists. The suspects used social media for recruitment purposes. They were reportedly arrested before they were able to execute their missions. Read more of this post
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Avner Barnea, counterintelligence, Iran, Israel, Israel Security Agency