When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in .

You've reached your limit of one free article.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime .

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Exclusive International news coverage

Ad-free experience NEW

Weekly digital Magazine NEW

9 daily & weekly Newsletters

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Free trial

30-days free access, then $2.90
per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
Israel

By Donkeys And Motorcycles, Primitive Hamas Messaging

Hamas methods for getting information to and from its fighters can pose intelligence challenges for the Israeli army, preventing it from deploying its full technological capabilities.

People on the remains of a destroyed Israeli military vehicle in the Gaza Strip
People on the remains of a destroyed Israeli military vehicle in the Gaza Strip
Ofir Dor

TEL AVIV — When Hamas withdrew from the temporary Gaza cease-fire last Friday and resumed rocket fire towards Israel, it demonstrated that the Hamas military wing is capable of communicating orders to its fighters on the ground, despite the major damages the organization has sustained.

In contrast, in what appeared the preceding Friday as the abduction of an Israeli officer, Hamas actually claimed it has lost contact with its fighters in the field.

Unlike the organization Hezbollah, Hamas has no fiber-optic landline communication, says intelligence expert Shlomo Shapiro, political studies chairman at Bar Ilan University.

"Unlike Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas needs to transmit messages across relatively short distances, and this is its advantage," Shapiro says. "The distance between Gaza's Shifa Hospital, where the Hamas leadership is located, and the border is a few kilometers. So a common way of relaying messages is by messengers on motorcycles or even donkeys. Hamas has not established an independent network, that would enable wire communication to transmit classified messages."

This poses an intelligence challenge for the Israeli army, preventing it from deploying its full technological capabilities. And yet, Israel's intelligence efforts are successful in thwarting Hamas activities, senior sources argue.

To bypass Israel's technological prowess, some Hamas messages are coded and transmitted through radio and TV broadcasts, says Barak Ben Zur of the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. "Radio presenters would receive a text that has some disguised meaning, or they might be asked to play a certain song intended to signal a Hamas squad at the north of the Gaza Strip to shoot three barrages into central Israel," says Ben Zur, a terror and intelligence expert and a former senior officer at the Israel Security Agency.

He believes that an organization such as Hamas cannot hide its plans and activities for long. "The power of an intelligence gathering system like Israel's is that it is so vast, it's impossible to keep many things away from it for a long time," he says. "Hamas is no longer a group of several hundred members, but an organization that numbers 15,000 to 20,000 people. There will always be someone who leaks."

Ben Zur also wonders whether the Palestinian group's preference for more primitive communications could be influenced by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden's revelations about the capacities of intelligence agencies.

"Snowden's information was undoubtedly an eye-opener regarding the technological capacities of the American and British intelligence, and Israel's are believed to be nearing that," he says. "However, the longer this conflict goes on, the more likely that discipline will weaken. And in an organization the size of Hamas, enforcing total discipline is impossible."

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Green

The Unsustainable Future Of Fish Farming — On Vivid Display In Turkish Waters

Currently, 60% of Turkey's fish currently comes from cultivation, also known as fish farming, compared to just 10% two decades ago. The short-sightedness of this shift risks eliminating fishing output from both the farms and the open seas along Turkey's 5,200 miles of coastline.

Photograph of two fishermen throwing a net into the Tigris river in Turkey.

Traditional fishermen on the Tigris river, Turkey.

Dûrzan Cîrano/Wikimeidia
İrfan Donat

ISTANBUL — Turkey's annual fish production includes 515,000 tons from cultivation and 335,000 tons came from fishing in open waters. In other words, 60% of Turkey's fish currently comes from cultivation, also known as fish farming.

It's a radical shift from just 20 years ago when some 600,000 tons, or 90% of the total output, came from fishing. Now, researchers are warning the current system dominated by fish farming is ultimately unsustainable in the country with 8,333 kilometers (5,177 miles) long.

Professor Mustafa Sarı from the Maritime Studies Faculty of Bandırma 17 Eylül University believes urgent action is needed: “Why were we getting 600,000 tons of fish from the seas in the 2000’s and only 300,000 now? Where did the other 300,000 tons of fish go?”

Professor Sarı is challenging the argument from certain sectors of the industry that cultivation is the more sustainable approach. “Now we are feeding the fish that we cultivate at the farms with the fish that we catch from nature," he explained. "The fish types that we cultivate at the farms are sea bass, sea bram, trout and salmon, which are fed with artificial feed produced at fish-feed factories. All of these fish-feeds must have a significant amount of fish flour and fish oil in them.”

That fish flour and fish oil inevitably must come from the sea. "We have to get them from natural sources. We need to catch 5.7 kilogram of fish from the seas in order to cultivate a sea bream of 1 kg," Sarı said. "Therefore, we are feeding the fish to the fish. We cannot cultivate fish at the farms if the fish in nature becomes extinct. The natural fish need to be protected. The consequences would be severe if the current policy is continued.”

Keep reading...Show less

The latest