GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israel is tracking Hamas members' movements via their mobile phones and using their "voiceprint" to carry out assassinations, according to reports from the Gaza Strip. Mobile phones are considered Israeli intelligence's most successful tool for tracking the movements of Gaza's various resistance factions. This comes at the end of a year of successive blows delivered by both Hamas security services and the resistance factions against Israeli spies and collaborators.

An official security source told Al-Monitor that there were cases in which resistance members were tracked and then assassinated through the use of mobile phones.

The security source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “The resistance has issued a circular to its members, at specific leading levels, banning the use of mobile phones as facts have indicated that Israel is inclined to use this way to implement assassinations in the phase following any confrontation.”

Political analyst Mustafa al-Sawaf wrote in a Jan. 23 article published on Al-Aqsa Voice Radio’s website that Israel has returned to its policy of assassinations, which he described as “an old policy with a new technique.” This practice, according to Sawaf, was recently employed in the targeting of Al-Quds Brigades member Ahmed al-Zaanin. Zaanin was accused by the Israeli army of firing rockets toward Sderot during the Jan. 13 funeral of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Zaanin's death was announced by both the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades — the armed military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — and Islamic Jihad.