A special report by the British newspaper “Financial Times” said that Israel succeeded in carrying out a precision assassination aimed at senior leaders of the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, “thanks to high-quality intelligence” .
The report, citing “informed” sources, indicated that during the 2006 war with the Lebanese armed group, Israel tried to assassinate its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, “three times without success in doing so ,” even though one of the strikes “came close to achieving that.
On Friday night, the Israeli army followed Nasrallah to a bunker built deep under a residential area in southern Beirut, and dropped up to 80 bombs to ensure his death.
An F-15I fighter jet pilot bragged about this achievement, which the Israeli army said dropped the deadly payload, destroying at least 4 residential buildings.
“We reach everyone, everywhere,” said the Israeli pilot.
Despite this boasting in Israel’s military and security establishment, which in recent weeks has dealt devastating blows to one of its biggest regional rivals, Israel “could not really , during nearly four decades of fighting against Hezbollah, to change course. of cases until recently.”
What has changed, according to current and former Israeli officials, is the “depth and quality of intelligence” relied on in the past two months, which led to the killing of Fouad Shukr , Nasrallah’s right-hand man, on. July 30.
The British newspaper explained that over two decades, the “Signals Intelligence Unit 8200” in the Israeli army, and the military intelligence service called “Aman”, produced a lot of data to map the “growth quickly” to draw. militias” on Israel’s northern front.
After the attack… “violent battles” between the Israeli army and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon
Syria
In this regard, a former Israeli intelligence officer, Miri Eisin, said that this “required a major shift in how Israel viewed Hezbollah, and the Lebanese guerrilla movement that had destroyed the will and energy of Israel, when which he attended at 18 years in the south. Lebanon.” .
She continued: “For Israel, this ended in 2000 with a humiliating withdrawal, accompanied by a major loss in intelligence gathering.”
She warned: “Instead, Israeli intelligence broadened its vision of Hezbollah as a whole, and looked beyond its military wing, to its political ambitions and growing links with the IRGC.” out Iran, and the relationship of (Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan). ) Nasrallah by the head of the Syrian regime.” Bashar al-Assad.
She also pointed out that for nearly a decade, Israeli intelligence had been referring to Hezbollah as a “terrorist army,” not a terrorist organization, because this “ideological shift” was the reason for making it Israel to closely monitor Hezbollah and a large area. scale.
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“data source”
The report noted that the dispersal of Hezbollah members in Syria as they fought alongside Syrian regime forces against opposition groups, some 13 years ago, helped reveal a lot of information about the group. Lebanon.
Randa Slim, director of programs at the Middle East Institute in Washington, explained that the expansion of Hezbollah militias in Syria “expanded their internal control mechanisms, which led to opening the door to information infiltration on large scale. “
According to a London newspaper report, the conflict in Syria provided Israeli spies with a “fountain of data”, most of which was available to people, such as the “martyrs posters” that Hezbollah often used. mourn the dead in Syria, who filled with little information, including his hometown.
The report indicated that Hezbollah’s funerals also revealed a lot of information, as they sometimes brought senior leaders out of the shadows, even for a short time.
A former high-ranking politician in Lebanon said, “Infiltrating Hezbollah with Israeli or American intelligence was the price for its support of Assad,” according to the Financial Times.
He continued: “They had to reveal themselves in Syria, where secret elements were suddenly communicating and exchanging information with the corrupt and notorious Syrian intelligence service, or with intelligence services of Russia, which was under constant scrutiny by the Americans.
Then, Yazid Sayegh, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center, explained: “They went from being very controlling and strict to an entity that allowed a large number of people… more than they should… it was the beginning of their weakness .”
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Israel’s expanded focus on Hezbollah in the region has been accompanied by a growing technical advantage, including spy satellites, advanced drones, and hacking capabilities that turn cellphones into earpieces.
Israel has collected so much data that they have a special agency (Unit 9900) that writes algorithms and sifts through terabytes of visual images to find the smallest changes.
Once a Hezbollah member is identified, his daily movement patterns are entered into a large database of information, drawn from tools that may include his wife’s mobile phone, or the odometer in his luxury car.
This information can be confirmed from various sources, such as a drone flying above his head, or from a hacked surveillance camera that he passes, or even from his voice picked up from a microphone on the remote control of modern television sets, according to Israel. officials.
One Israeli official explained to the newspaper, “Any break in this routine will be an alert for the intelligence officer to investigate, and it is this technology that has allowed Israel to identify mid-level leaders of anti-tank teams, containing two or three. warriors, who harassed the army of Israel across the border.”
He continued: “At some point, Israel checked the commanders’ records to see if they were called suddenly in anticipation of an attack.”
Over the years, Israeli intelligence has been able to build up a large target bank, to the extent that in the first three days of its air campaign in Lebanon, its warplanes attempted to -destroyed at least 3,000 suspected Hezbollah targets, according to public statements released by the Israeli military.
The continuous exchange of cross-border fire with Israel and Hezbollah for more than 10 months has led Nasrallah to believe that the two sides are in a new kind of movement, with clear red lines that can be managed, until Israel agrees to stop -fire. in Gaza by Hamas, This allows Hezbollah a “way out” that allows it to agree to a cease-fire with Israel.
Sayegh explained that Hezbollah “felt an obligation to participate in the fight, but at the same time there was no real intention to take an initiative.”
He said: “It looks like they fired a few missiles here and there, and got a few strikes back, and were fooled into thinking this was the peak.
But even the possibility that Hezbollah would attempt the same kind of cross-border attacks as Hamas did on October 7 was enough for Israel to evacuate residential communities near its border with Lebanon, where some 60,000 Israelis were forced to leave their homes. , leading to a shift in The border is an active war zone with Hezbollah.
In an effort to create the conditions for their return, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have unveiled Israel’s most advanced offensive capabilities, according to officials familiar with the operation.
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2024-10-01 13:31:00
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