Vantage | How Israel's Unit 504 is uncovering Hamas presence in Gaza

Israel has been targeting hospitals. The first was the Al-Shifa hospital and the second is the Indonesian hospital which was attacked on Monday. The world has condemned these attacks, but Israel says there is a good reason to target hospitals, and that Hamas terrorists are hiding there. In fact, Israel has deployed a special unit for this. For information gathering and intelligence. It’s called unit 504. Apparently, this unit has been critical. They were the ones who uncovered Hamas’ presence in Gaza hospitals.

The 1973 Yom Kippur War was a turning point for Israel. The Israeli Defence Forces did not foresee the attack. The intelligence took the blame, which forced it to rethink. What was intelligence going to look like in the coming years? There were already several units of IDF intelligence. But the war propelled the rise of two agencies: Mossad and Shin Bet. They were now in charge of Israel’s intelligence along with the IDF. It brings us to Unit 504, a special Israeli spying unit that belongs to the IDF. And has been involved in intelligence operations for a long time. Unlike Mossad and Shin Bet, it has more presence on the ground and is engaged in more critical operations. Now, Unit 504 has been involved in Gaza before, but since the last decade, it has been more of Shin Bet’s responsibility. However, all of that changed on 7 October when Hamas attacked Israel. It took over 200 citizens hostage. The country was in shock and the intelligence agencies were aghast at missing all signs of the attack. So immediately after the attack, Unit 504 was doubled in size. They built a makeshift headquarters in the south of the country. They were back in Gaza, after a decade-long hiatus. Unit 504 had four main goals: Providing support for the ground operation; intelligence gathering to find targets; leading the evacuation effort; and ensuring the civilian population in Gaza was evacuated southwards. But their top priority was tracking Hamas. And they seem to have uncovered their presence in Gaza’s hospitals. The unit says they interrogated a few Palestinians. They talked about the heavy presence of Hamas in those hospitals. Some 80 to 100 people. They also said that Hamas was using people as human shields. That’s something Hamas has done before. So it is not unlikely at all that they will do it again. The IDF claims a Gaza resident also talked about Hamas’ presence at these hospitals. According to the resident, they were dressed as hospital workers, doctors and nurses. Hamas was hiding rockets with blankets and then using these rockets to carry out strikes. Anyone who protested risked their life. Unit 504 has arrested 300 people that the unit says are Hamas terrorists. How did they manage that? According to them, there were a few tactics. First, information from Palestinians. The IDF says it got calls from Gaza residents who wanted to help them with intel. Second, there were dozens of Arabic-speaking field interrogators across Gaza. After well over a month, Israel has given the world a sneak peak into Unit 504’s operations that are crucial in this war and this unit continues to be on the ground gathering intelligence and tracking Hamas down in Gaza. Their job is not done until all the hostages are back safe and sound. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views. Read all the  Latest News,  Trending News,  Cricket News,  Bollywood News, India News and  Entertainment News here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.