Hackers working for Iranian intelligence on Thursday released dozens of former IDF Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi’s private photos and videos, alongside personal documents.
Halevi is the latest in a series of Israeli security officials to fall victim to “hack-and-leak” operations by the hacker group, known as Handala.
“For years, Handala has silently and relentlessly been right at the heart of General Herzi Halevi’s system, the former Chief of Staff of the Zionist Army, watching, recording, and collecting everything that matters,” Handala said in a statement.
“During this time, over 19,000 confidential images and videos have been extracted and archived by Handala, from top-secret meetings, classified files, and even crisis rooms of the Zionist military’s General Staff.”
It is not yet clear how the group gained access to the photos, with one possibility being that Handala accessed Halevi’s mobile phone or Google/iCloud account, where the materials may have been stored.
The documents the hackers leaked include photos of his and his wife’s passports, photos taken during Halevi’s visits to various military facilities, and both official and unofficial meetings with former U.S. Central Command chief Mike Kurilla.
Handala also released photos taken during Halevi’s meetings with his counterparts in the Arab world, including a previously undisclosed visit to Qatar, and secret flights in business jets.
The leaked materials also include photos showing Halevi in his home environment, with his family, and on trips.
The hacker group also said it “fully identified and archived” the “clear, unblurred faces of hundreds of Israeli war criminal pilots, field commanders and security operatives.”
In late March, the group leaked personal correspondence and documents from the former Mossad Director Tamir Pardo’s Gmail inbox. The leak revealed Pardo’s residential addresses, his and his assistant’s phone numbers, and travel and activity patterns.
In February, the Shin Bet security service explained that Iran collects such personal details to build intelligence profiles on targets, a concern that has become tangible given the arrest of dozens of Israelis in the past two years on espionage and collaboration charges.
On Thursday, the Shin Bet said several Israeli citizens were charged with producing explosives to assassinate a senior Israeli official and carrying out security missions for the Iranian government.
It appears that Iran is searching for ways to retaliate against Israel’s successful assassinations of its senior officials in recent rounds of fighting.
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“Hack-and-leak” attacks are a hallmark of Handala, which purports to be a pro-Palestinian group but operates as an official arm of Iranian intelligence. Handala and several other groups are designed to appear as independent entities with varying specializations.
Over the past two years, Handala has published extensive materials obtained from breaches it had previously carried out.
The leaks included tens of thousands of internal police documents, intelligence and air force officers’ identities, information from the internal databases of Israel’s largest health fund, as well as correspondence and contact lists stolen from the mobile phones of former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman.
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