The chapter deals with Hamas’s human intelligence (HUMINT) activity. Hamas, of course, makes use of the most traditional method of intelligence gathering – information from human sources. This chapter details how Hamas first recruited local sources for short periods and specific missions. Gradually, sources were recruited who could operate outside of Israel; these sources were sent on longer-term and more advanced missions. Hamas also used the internet, i.e., social media and email, to contact and handle potential sources. This chapter also describes how Hamas turned collaborators with Israel into double agents and ran operations using these agents.

The chapter seeks to lay out the conceptual and practical foundations of information warfare in the twenty-first century. Different concepts are identified and defined, together with how they affect and influence the information and cognitive realms of global audiences. The evolution and development of information warfare is identified and analysed. In addition to establishing why the problem of information warfare exists, and at this point in time, some proposals are explored as to how to set about addressing the problem.

During an era marked by suspicion, and recurrent failures of ‘humint’ (human intelligence gathering), Cold War decision-makers were increasingly captivated and guided by the prognostications and intimations of ‘sigint’ (signals intelligence), ‘comint’ (communications intelligence) and ‘elint’ (electronic intelligence): that is, intelligence gathering through the interception and interpretation of electronic or electromagnetic signals and communications. Decision- and policy-making under the rubric of international law engaged continually with the would-be, could-be or might-have-been moves of key protagonists, as those moves appeared in electronic data. International legal order came to be marked, during the Cold War, by the latent or virtual agency of these overlapping ‘data shadows’ in ways that leave an enduring legacy today. This is demonstrated here by brief discussion of two instances of international conflict, and associated legal analysis, in ‘the “hottest” theatre’ of the Cold War: Asia.