‘Catfishing’: Hamas use social media platforms to extract info from troops, says IDF

Tel Aviv, Nov 2

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Thursday said that it has foiled a network of fake social media profiles that attempted to extract information from soldiers on behalf of the Hamas amid the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, media reports said.

The IDF said that the profiles were operated by ‘Axis of Resistance’ countries -- an informal coalition against Israel and Western nations -- led by Iran, Times of Israel reported.

The IDF said that the operatives used photos of real women in a practice known as “catfishing,” and managed a kind of romantic relationship through correspondence, voice recordings and video calls, in an attempt to obtain information for Hamas.

The IDF said that the faux social media profiles had additional fake profiles posing as their parents, siblings and friends, in order to strengthen their credibility, Times of Israel reported.

It said that the network consisted of dozens of fake profiles on social networks, mostly on Instagram, and the number of potential victims was between hundreds and thousands of soldiers, including reservists.

IDF said that the Israeli authorities are working with social media sites to ban the accounts, the report said.