EXCLUSIVEInside Israel’s Unit 8200: The team of teen tech whizzes who tracked down Iran’s uranium enrichment sites
By SUSAN GREENE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
Published: 11:07 EDT, 23 June 2025 | Updated: 12:26 EDT, 23 June 2025
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Israel has an equivalent of the United States National Security Agency that carries out cyber warfare and other types of clandestine operations, but with one notable difference: It’s staffed largely by teenagers.
The soldiers of Israel Defense Forces Unit 8200 – most living with their parents and working for peanuts as part of the country’s compulsory military service – located the Iranian uranium enrichment sites Israel has been trying to destroy for the past week.
They produced the anti-Ayatollah video with which they interrupted Iran‘s state-run news broadcast on Wednesday. And they pinpointed the Iranian leaders and nuclear scientists on Israel’s hit list.
A unit veteran, now in his early 30s and running an artificial intelligence start-up in Southern California, calls its 18 to 21-year-old active-duty soldiers ‘the most nerdy of nerds.’
‘These are the hackers, the chess players, the eggheads you knew in high school, but to the Nth degree,’ he says, insisting on anonymity for fear, he claims, that ‘anyone who’s done intelligence in Israel isn’t safe’ these days, even in the US.
Delusions of Adequacy 