In an effort to prevent inadvertent leakage of classified materials, Israel Defence Forces (IDF) plan to block popular social networking sites including Facebook and Twitter, as well as email sites like Gmail at army bases.

The head of Israel's military intelligence corps information security, Gadi Abadi, told Channel 2 television that the sites would be blocked on computers that have internet connections on army bases and offices where classified materials are kept.

These sites however would be accessible from computers situated in the unit's break room.

"We give IDF soldiers a lot of credit. They are good soldiers who care deeply about security, but they are human", Abadi told the Channel adding, "When a soldier is in his office at the unit, the risk of confusion and mistakes is higher.

When you separate the work environment from the non-operations environment, the number of mistakes drops significantly".

Soldiers though can still access the blocked sites on their cellular phones. The IDF established a special unit following the Second Lebanon War against Shi'ite Hizbullah faction in 2006 to prevent the leakage of classified information onto the internet via social networks.

The unit scans a list of popular websites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace looking for breaches of security.

Military Intelligence also disseminated a memo on the protocols of transfer of information online in efforts to raise awareness on the dangers of such inadvertent leaks.

"Who has been handing out gifts to Hamas?" the memo read.

Images from which classified information can be gleaned have been located online on a Hamas forum! These photos include IDF weapons, military exercises during Cast Lead, photos of senior officials, a photo of a drone and more.

Most of these pictures were uploaded to social networks by IDF soldiers.

Exposure of such classified information undermines the element of surprise and could lead to attacks on our forces," it further said.