Hours before Hezbollah leader Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon, an Iranian spy tipped off Israeli authorities on his location, French newspaper Le Parisien has reported.
The report cited a Lebanese security source as saying that the spy had informed Israeli officials that Nasrallah would be at Hezbollah’s underground headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut to attend a meeting with several top members of the organization. .
Around 1.30 pm yesterday (11 am Lebanon time), the Israel Defense Forces said in a post on Twitter, “Hassan Nasrallah will no longer be able to terrorize the world.” Later in the day, Hezbollah confirmed the news. “Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah … has joined his great, immortal martyred companions, whom he led for nearly 30 years,” it said in a statement.
How Israel promoted spies in the fight against Hezbollah
According to a report in The New York Times, Israel’s recent successes against Hezbollah are a direct result of the country’s decision to devote far greater intelligence resources to targeting Hezbollah following its 2006 war with the Iran-backed group. The report said Israeli military and intelligence agencies failed to achieve a decisive victory in that 34-day conflict. The war ended with a UN-brokered ceasefire that, despite losses, allowed Hezbollah to regroup and prepare for the next war.
In the years that followed, Israel deployed enormous resources to collect information about Hezbollah’s leadership and strategy. The NYT reports that Israel’s signals intelligence agency Unit 8200 has created sophisticated cyber tools to better intercept Hezbollah’s cellphones and other communications. It added that new teams were formed within the combat ranks to ensure that valuable information could be immediately passed on to the troops and air force.
Pager bomb and Nasrallah’s entry
In a recent televised speech, Nasrallah said Hezbollah had suffered an “unprecedented blow” after Israel detonated pagers and hand-held radios packed with explosives. These attacks killed 37 people and injured nearly 3,000 in two days. Nasrallah then warned Israel of “harsh retaliation and appropriate punishment where it expects it and where it does not expect it”.
A Lebanese investigation found that the pagers were framed, AFP reports.
After Israel’s entry into cellphones, Hezbollah members began communicating via pagers and walkie-talkies. But this did not protect them.
The NYT reports that the Mossad appear to have set up a shell company in Budapest and manufactured the pagers under license from a Taiwanese company. Before the pagers reached Lebanon, Israeli operatives had installed explosives inside them. It said the operation was scaled up to produce thousands of pagers, which required sophisticated manufacturing.
Top Hezbollah leaders were targeted
Israel’s investment in gathering more intelligence first bore fruit in 2008 when the Mossad worked with the CIA to kill a top Hezbollah operative in Syria, Imad Mughniyah, the NYT reported. In 2020, Qassem Soleimani, who leads Iran’s Quds Force, flew to Damascus, Syria and went to Beirut in a convoy to meet Nasrallah. Israel did not try to kill Nasrallah for fear of starting a war. It passed information to the US and Soleimani was killed in a drone strike at Baghdad airport, the report said.
Hamas attacks on Israeli cities on October 7 sparked ongoing conflict in the Middle East. As soon as the war in Gaza started due to Israel’s counter-offensive, Hezbollah started targeting Israel.
Over the past few months, Tel Aviv has deployed its full force against Hezbollah. An attack on July 30 killed Fawad Shukr, one of the group’s top military commanders. About three weeks later, an attack killed Ibrahim Akil, the head of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, and 15 other commanders. A few days later, another attack killed Ibrahim Mohammed Kobeissi, who commanded several Hezbollah units, including a guided missile unit. The following day, Mohammed Srour, the head of Hezbollah’s drone unit, was killed in an attack.
Chip Asher, a former CIA analyst who worked with Israeli intelligence, told the NYT, “The secret of their success depends on a few factors. They have a fairly defined target deck. That makes it easier for them to bring down a tremendous target. Is.” They concentrate completely on what they do. “They are in a shadow war with Hezbollah and Iran and they are exceptionally patient.”
