Israeli intelligence has compiled a target list containing thousands of names and is systematically tracking down participants in the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack, relying on facial recognition, intercepted communications, biometric matching, and location intelligence to identify suspects across Gaza and beyond, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation published this week.

The operation continued even after the U.S.-brokered cease-fire signed in October 2025 and reached one of its highest-profile targets on May 15, when senior Hamas military commander Izz al-Din al-Haddad was killed in a targeted Israeli airstrike in Gaza City.

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir confirmed the strike on May 16, describing it as a “significant operational achievement” and stating that Israel would “continue to pursue our enemies, strike them and hold accountable everyone who took part in the October 7th massacre.”

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem separately confirmed Haddad’s death.

At the center of the operation is a specialized Shin Bet task force known as NILI, a Hebrew acronym translating roughly to “The Eternity of Israel Will Not Lie.” The unit was reportedly established specifically to identify and eliminate members of Hamas’s elite Nukhba commando force involved in the Oct. 7 border assault.

The business implications of the campaign extend far beyond military operations.

Israeli intelligence agencies are heavily dependent on a network of domestic cybersecurity, surveillance, digital-forensics, and artificial-intelligence firms whose technologies are increasingly being marketed worldwide to governments, police agencies, border authorities, and large corporations.

Among the most prominent is Cellebrite Software Ltd., the Nasdaq-listed digital-forensics company headquartered in Petah Tikva. Cellebrite reported 2025 revenue of approximately $475.7 million, up 19% year over year, while annual recurring revenue reached $480.8 million, a 21% increase. The company supplies mobile-device extraction and investigative software widely used by U.S. federal, state, and local law-enforcement agencies.

Chief Executive Thomas Hogan, who assumed the role in 2025, has publicly emphasized expanding the company’s AI-driven investigative capabilities for both government and enterprise clients.

Other major Israeli firms tied to the surveillance and intelligence ecosystem include Cognyte Software Ltd., which develops communications intercept and analytics systems used by foreign intelligence agencies; Corsight AI, a facial-recognition company focused on border and security applications; and Oosto, formerly known as AnyVision, which builds biometric video-analysis platforms.

NSO Group, developer of the controversial Pegasus mobile-intrusion software, remains under U.S. Commerce Department sanctions but continues operating internationally.

The broader industry has become one of Israel’s most important economic sectors.

Israeli cybersecurity exports reached roughly $14 billion in 2025, according to figures published by the Israel Innovation Authority and the Israel National Cyber Directorate. Defense exports overall hit a record $14.7 billion in 2024, according to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, with analysts expecting another record in 2025 once final numbers are released.

The technological dataset supporting Israel’s Oct. 7 manhunt is unusually extensive.

Many Hamas militants recorded the attacks using body cameras and uploaded footage to social media in real time. Israeli authorities also gathered hostage cellphone recordings, surveillance-camera footage from locations including the Nova music festival near Re’im, intercepted Telegram communications, and other digital evidence.

Israeli officials have described the resulting archive as one of the largest biometric datasets ever assembled on an attacking force during an active conflict.

In May, researchers affiliated with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Long War Journal reported identifying previously unnamed attackers using Amazon Rekognition facial-recognition technology matched against publicly available social-media profiles. One identification reportedly returned a 99.9% similarity score.

Israel’s defense spending has expanded sharply since the war began.

Military expenditures now account for roughly 6.5% of Israeli GDP, according to data from the Bank of Israel and Israeli Finance Ministry budget documents, compared with approximately 4.5% before the conflict. The increase has widened fiscal pressures, weighed on the shekel, and increased sovereign borrowing costs, although ratings agencies including Moody’s Investors Service and S&P Global Ratings have maintained Israel’s investment-grade status.

The strike that killed Haddad reportedly involved days of continuous surveillance.

According to Israeli security officials, the operation was approved roughly 10 days before execution. Israeli Air Force commanders allegedly conducted what one senior official described as a “deception operation” designed to mask unusual military activity and reduce Hamas alert levels before the strike.

The attack targeted a residential structure in Gaza City’s Rimal neighborhood. Gaza emergency authorities reported at least seven deaths and more than 50 injuries.

Haddad had assumed leadership of Hamas’s military wing in May 2025 following the killing of his predecessor, Mohammed Sinwar.

Former hostages Romi Gonen and Emily Damari had previously identified Haddad in televised interviews as one of the commanders involved in their captivity inside Hamas tunnel networks.

For Israel’s cybersecurity and surveillance sector, the war has effectively become a large-scale real-world demonstration of operational capability.

Industry executives and investors have increasingly pointed to the conflict as proof that Israeli-origin intelligence systems can function under live battlefield conditions at scale. Since 2023, purchases of Israeli surveillance, digital-forensics, and AI-security tools have expanded among Western police departments, Gulf-state security agencies, European border authorities, and private-sector corporate-security teams.

The cease-fire signed last year remains fragile.

Israeli officials have indicated the target list assembled after Oct. 7 is still active — and not yet complete.

— JBizNews Desk

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