For the first time, Israel has used brute military force to respond to a Hamas cyber-attack, three years after NATO proclaimed "cyber" an official battlefield[2] in modern warfare.
The "bomb-back" response took place on Saturday when Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched an air-strike against a building in the Gaza Strip they claimed it housed Hamas cyber operatives, which had been engaging in a cyber-attack against Israel's "cyberspace."
"We were ahead of them all the time," said Brigadier General D., the head of the IDF's cyber defense division. "The moment they tried to do something, they failed."
Israeli officials did not disclose any details about the Hamas cyber-attack; however, they said they first stopped the attack online, and only then responded with an air-strike.
"After dealing with the cyber dimension, the Air Force dealt with it in the physical dimension," said IDF spokesperson, Brig. Gen. Ronen Manlis. "At this point in time, Hamas has no cyber operational capabilities."
The Shin Bet security service was also involved in the operation, the IDF said in a press release.
US did it first
Israel's response to the Hamas' attempted cyber-attack is a turning point in modern warfare, where military action was chosen instead of a typical "hack-back" response.
In 2015[3], the US became the first country to respond with military force to cyber-attacks, when it used a drone strike to kill Junaid Hussain, a British citizen who was in charge of ISIL's hacker groups, and who was responsible for dumping personal details of US military forces online, via Twitter.
However, Israel's response against Hamas marks the first time that a country has reacted with immediate military force to a cyber-attack in an