The Israeli intelligence agency Mossad has a special unit called Caesrea which is tasked with hunting down Hamas leaders. Photo/Reuters
GAZA – The Caesarea Unit is a secret operational branch in Mossad who are in charge of planting and running spies especially in Arab countries and around the world.
The unit was founded in the early 1970s, and one of its founders was the notorious Israeli spy Mike Harari.
Caesarea leverages its extensive spy network in Arab and Middle Eastern countries to gather information and conduct surveillance on current and future targets.
Michael Harari, the top Mossad official, founded Caesarea’s deadliest unit, known in Hebrew as Kidon (“bayonet”), which consisted of professional assassins who specialized in assassination and sabotage operations.
Kidon members often come from branches of the Israeli military including the army or special forces.
Mossad targets not only Palestinian leaders and agents, but also Syrian, Lebanese, Iranian and European leaders.
Caesarea is the equivalent of the CIA’s Special Activities Center (SAC), which used to be called the Special Activities Division before being reorganized and renamed in 2016.
The CIA carries out covert paramilitary missions – including targeted killing operations – through its Special Operations Group (SOG), which is part of the SAC and has some similarities to the Mossad’s Kidon.
According to Al Jazeera, until 2000, which marked the start of the second Intifada in the occupied Palestinian territories, Israel had carried out more than 500 assassination operations which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,000 people, including targets and people nearby.
During the Second Intifada, Israel carried out another 1,000 operations, and 168 of them were successful. Since then, Israel has carried out at least 800 more operations aimed at killing Hamas civilian and military leaders in the Gaza Strip and abroad.
(ahm)
2024-01-07 14:21:00
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