Ashlyn Schultz
On 10OCT2023, the Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades’ newest android app was shared on the group’s official telegram channel. The first message shared was an image advertising the Al-Qassam app, receiving about 650,000 views and over 10,000 reactions. The second message shared was a download of the app and a text telling users to download the free trial version of the app that is available for Android devices, receiving two million views and over 18,000 reactions. Compared to previous messages sent in the Al-Qassam telegram channel, which typically receive between 100,000-400,000 views, the views on messages advertising the app are significantly higher.
Figure 1: Al-Qassam Telegram channel advertising the group’s app
Al-Qassam Android Application Contents
The Al-Qassam Android Application functions as a news feed, updating users on Al-Qassam Brigades news, activities, operations, martyrs, and more. The app itself is simplistic, but provides consistent and regular reports. The home page is styled similar to a Twitter/X feed where short text posts are shared and dated. These contain images of official announcements and videos of rocket launches, and the posts are made every few hours.
Figure 2: Cover photo when opening the app
Main Page
The main page of the app displays the most recent reports from each tab of the app including videos, statements, and urgent news with as many as 8,000 views on certain announcements.
Figure 3: Main page of the app
App Menu
The app provides several different informational resources. The menu bar has ten tabs including a link to the Al-Qassam website, breaking news, Qassam memories, statements, reports, videos, operations, martyrs, contact page, and notifications options.
On the bottom of the menu bar, the app includes links to the group’s telegram channel and website. The previous Al-Qassam website is down and has moved to a new IP Address that the app connects to.
Figure 4: App menu
Breaking News Tab
The Breaking News section includes content that is currently occurring or developing, mostly involving Al-Qassam operations.
Figure 5: Breaking news
Qassam ‘Memories’ Tab
The Qassam ‘Memories’ tab includes an archive of historical events like operations or martyrdoms. This section will showcase the events that occurred on the date that the user is viewing this tab. Users can also filter results by day, month, and year.
Figure 6: Qassam Memories
Statements Tab
The Statements tab includes a list of official Al-Qassam released statements describing operations and claiming attacks.
Figure 7: Statements
Reports Tab
The Reports section is updated daily with information on military operations conducted in the region including images.
Figure 8: Reports
Videos Tab
The videos section includes a number of videos ranging from interviews with members of the group to videos of military operations.
Figure 9: Videos
Operations Tab
The operations tab catalogs military operations being conducted by the group.
Figure 10: Operations
Oasis of Martyrs Tab
The Oasis of Martyrs section showcases a list of Al-Qassam members that have died including their name, where they are from, and the date of their death.
Figure 11: Oasis of Martyrs
Contact Page
The Contact section is a place where users can contact the group under four options: general messages, contacting the administrator, support and donation, and public relations.
Figure 12: Contact page
The message that are written and submitted in the app will redirect users to their email account sending to one of the following emails based on who the user is trying to contact:
fund@alqassam[.]ps, info@alqassam[.]ps, admin@alqassam[.]ps, or public-relation@qassam[.]ps.
Figure 13: List of Emails
Notifications Options
The notification section allows users to create alerts for different tabs that they would like to receive notifications from. This includes a reports notification, breaking news notification, video notification, and statement notification.
Figure 14: Notification options
Al-Qassam Website
A new website belonging to Al-Qassam was identified and is linked on the group’s app. The website is available in Arabic and English almost mirroring the content that is disseminated through the app.
Figure 15: Al-Qassam Website in Arabic
The English version of the Al-Qassam website has a slightly different display with similar content.
Figure 16: Al-Qassam Website in English
The registration information for the new Al-Qassam website lists the registrar as GoDaddy, creation date as 25OCT2023, and name server as Cloudflare.
Figure 17: Registration Whois Datapoints
Network Traffic
IP Address: 5.253.143[.]42
When examining the network traffic involving the Al Qassam Brigade app, DarkTower observed TCP traffic to the server palcloud[.]ps on the IP 5.253.143[.]42. All news updates to the app come from this address as seen in the network traffic capture below. Palcloud[.]ps also hosts the Al Qassam news site with similar content to media-ps[.]org. There is no internal way to update the application from within the app itself. If the palcloud[.]ps site were to be taken down, the app would need to be reinstalled; most likely this would be announced in the official Al Qassam Brigade Telegram channel where the app originated from.
Figure 18: Al-Qassam website network traffic
Figure 19: Al-Qassam Website DNS History
DNS History from Zetalytics indicates that PalCloud.ps was previously hosted on the Russian IP address 185.209.32[.]193 and used Cloudflare for Nameservers. This hosting changed on 12OCT2023 to use Turkish IP address 5.253.143[.]42 and self-hosted Nameservers.
Al-Qassam Telegram
The official Al-Qassam telegram channel is linked on their app with a total of 691,069 subscribers.
Figure 20: Al-Qassam Telegram channel
Additionally, the telegram channel belonging to Al-Qassam’s official spokesman for Al-Qassam, Abu Ubaida, was identified by DarkTower with a total of 584,466 subscribers.
Figure 21: Abu Ubaida Telegram Channel