Israel Matzav

Stupid Jews: IDF soldier broadcasts advance notice of raid on his Facebook page

The IDF was forced to cancel an operation in the Binyamin region (Samaria) when a soldier in the unit posted an update on his Facebook page that disclosed and gave details of the operation.

The operation was scheduled to take place several weeks ago in the Binyamin region. The soldier, from an elite unit of the Artillery Corps, posted on his Facebook page: “On Wednesday, we are cleaning out [the name of the village] – today an arrest operation, tomorrow an arrest operation and then, please God, home by Thursday.”

The status update on the soldier’s page was revealed by other members of the soldier’s unit. His commanders then updated Judea and Samaria Division commander Brig.-Gen. Nitzan Alon, who decided to cancel the operation out of concern that the mission had been compromised.

The raid eventually took place, several days later, and was successful. The soldier, who had updated his Facebook page with his cellular phone, was disciplined by his commander, sentenced to 10 days in jail and kicked out of his unit.

Following the incident, the IDF’s Information Security Unit published a letter in which it warned soldier of the danger involved in publishing sensitive military information on Facebook.

“Enemy intelligence scans the Internet in search of pieces of information about the IDF. Information that could sabotage operations and endanger our forces,” the letter read.

This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened - read the whole thing.

In the Second Lebanon War, there were problems with soldiers giving away positions when their cell phone conversations were eavesdropped. In Operation Cast Lead, the army took the phones away as the soldiers entered Gaza and returned them when they left. The army is supposed to be getting a secure communications network, although I doubt it is intended to accommodate Joe Soldier's cell phone.

And what if this had been a war and the other member's of this kid's unit had not had the time to go surfing and see what he posted on Facebook? Not smart. In fact, pretty stupid.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:27 PM