Unit 504 is one of the most secret units in the IDF that deals with intel inside the Arab population, interrogations and precise intelligence. Because of the nature of their work, you don't hear much about them, but they are there. Today we were allowed to get a small glimpse inside that work, and report here in two parts.
An interview with an investigator in 504 is no small feat. Those who are used to being on the questioning side, this time take us to the heart of the battlefield through the eyes of a human intelligence unit. We heard how 3 minutes inside the head of a Hamas terrorist ended with the destruction of a terror tunnel, and about the cigarette with Gaza that led to the saving of the lives of fighters - just before they entered an ambush
Darkness descends on the Jabaliya refugee camp, and among the tanks surrounding it, two figures are hidden. They walk leisurely on the sand, whistling a Palestinian folk tune - they are almost indistinguishable from the local population. Only behind their darting eyes, searching the horizon for an unknown object, is hidden the mission they were sent to do: thwarting Hamas's most valuable weapon.
You might have thought of a long-range missile launcher or a powerful explosive device, but this is precisely the information that the field investigators of the 504th Human Intelligence Unit gather, which proves itself almost daily in Gaza and Lebanon, and saves the lives of IDF fighters and Israeli citizens.