Hamas, Iran Try to ‘Catfish’ IDF Soldiers with Fake Female Social Media Accounts

Hamas has been found to have used fake female social media accounts in an attempt to “catfish” Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers and determine their locations and other information.

The IDF has exposed examples of catfishing accounts:

שיחות ברשתות החברתיות בין פרופילים של דמויות “אווטר” לפרופילים של חיילי צה”ל:https://t.co/kU8hBMz781

שיחת וידאו בין דמות “אווטר” מהרשת לבין חייל צה”ל: pic.twitter.com/pR8UkctSdz

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) November 2, 2023

The Times of Israel reported:

According to the Israel Defense Forces, the profiles were operated by countries in the so-called “Axis of Resistance,” an informal coalition of anti-Israel and anti-Western nations and terror groups, led by Iran.

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,” the IDF says, in an attempt to obtain information for Hamas.

The IDF says the faux social media profiles had additional fake profiles posing as their “parents,” “siblings” and “friends,” in order to “strengthen their credibility.”

Social media have emerged as a key terrain of battle in the war, with TikTok and other viral sites often sharing misinformation to sway public opinion.

Some statistics suggest that the platforms are dominated by anti-Israel voices, though that may be a function of numbers as much as the result of algorithms, since the number of Israelis and Jews is dwarfed by the number of users in the Muslim world.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.