Immediately after Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on October 7, Israeli intelligence officials feared that a pre-emptive strike from Hezbollah, another longtime enemy, was imminent. They prepared desperately to stop it, planning to attack and kill Hassan Nasrallah, the powerful Hezbollah leader whom the Israelis knew was in a Beirut bunker.
But when Israel notified the White House of its plans, alarmed administration officials downplayed the impending Hezbollah attack. Current and former U.S. and Israeli officials said President Biden called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and told him killing Nasrallah would spark a regional war and asked him to refrain from firing shots.
On Saturday, Israel said it had killed Nasrallah after military planes dropped more than 80 bombs on four Lebanese apartment blocks. For more than 30 years, Hezbollah leaders have been meeting with senior leaders. The White House was furious because Biden was not informed in advance.
But the more significant achievement for both Israel and the United States was that Israeli intelligence was able to pinpoint Mr. Nasrallah’s location and infiltrate Hezbollah’s inner circle. Israel decimated Hezbollah’s upper and middle ranks within weeks, leaving the group in turmoil.
This success is a direct result of the country’s decision to devote far more intelligence resources to targeting Hezbollah after its 2006 war with the Iranian-backed terrorist organization. It was a defining moment for Israeli intelligence. Although the Israeli military and intelligence services were unable to achieve a decisive victory in the 34-day conflict, a ceasefire was reached brokered by the United Nations, and Hezbollah, despite suffering heavy losses, was able to regroup and join the next Israeli alliance. were able to prepare for war.
Israel has spent years since then ramping up what was already considered one of the best intelligence-gathering operations in the world. Much of the effort has been invested in Mossad and Israel’s military intelligence agencies, which, after the 2006 war, were frustrated by deficiencies in gathering critical intelligence about Hezbollah’s leadership and strategy.
As a result, Israel’s communications intelligence agency, Unit 8200, has built state-of-the-art cyber tools to more effectively intercept Hezbollah’s cellphones and other communications, allowing valuable information to quickly reach soldiers and air forces. Created a new team within the combat force to be communicated. .
Israel has also begun flying more drones and state-of-the-art satellites over Lebanon, continuously photographing Hezbollah strongholds and documenting even small changes in buildings that could reveal weapons depots, for example. This work was called “Sisyphean” by a former Israeli intelligence official. Last week, the Israeli Air Force attacked many of these targets.
Additionally, Unit 8200 and its American counterpart, the National Security Agency, have forged stronger relationships that have expanded the Israeli government’s intelligence on mutual adversaries like Iran and Hezbollah.
Israel takes advantage of Lebanon’s proximity (Jerusalem is less than 150 miles from the Lebanese border) to send undercover special forces deep into Lebanon to carry out sensitive intelligence missions.
Most importantly, former U.S. and Israeli officials say Israel’s boldness in carrying out such operations sets it apart from traditional intelligence agencies, which are less amenable to risk and legal hurdles. That’s what I’m doing.
“They understand that this has been and continues to be a protracted conflict,” said Chip Asher, a former top CIA Middle East analyst who has worked extensively with Israeli intelligence. “They are introducing features to serve their needs over the long term.”
Israel’s aggressiveness has resulted in a series of humiliating defeats for Hezbollah in recent days, even though Hezbollah has worked closely with Iran to locate Israeli spies and improve its ability to detect electronic intrusions.
Before his death, Mr. Nasrallah acknowledged as much in a recent televised address. He said his group had suffered a “strong blow” after Israel detonated explosive-laden pagers and portable radios.
Israel’s investments in increasing intelligence gathering after the failure in Lebanon first paid off in 2008, according to American and Israeli officials. Israel’s foreign spy agency Mossad worked with the CIA to kill Hezbollah leader Imad Mughniyeh in Syria.
The 8200 unit’s increased focus on Hezbollah continued to bear fruit in January 2020. Israeli intelligence watched as General Qassim Suleimani, the powerful commander of Iran’s Quds Force, flew to Damascus and headed to Beirut in a convoy to meet Mr. Nasrallah. Israel decided at the time not to attempt to kill Mr. Nasrallah for fear of starting a war, but passed the information on to the United States, which killed Mr. Suleimani in a drone strike at Baghdad International Airport.
In July, Israel killed senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in a missile attack while he was visiting his lover in Beirut. Mr. Shoukur, a close ally of Mr. Nasrallah, was also wanted by the United States for his role in the 1983 bombing in Beirut that killed about 300 American and French soldiers.
More recently, the fighting has expanded to Syria, where the 8200 provided intelligence to Israel’s raid on a secret Hezbollah and Iranian missile factory in early September.
Israel had become so infiltrated with Hezbollah’s cellphones that the group decided to shift to pagers and walkie-talkies as a means of communication. In response, Mossad began planning to turn pagers and radios into small bombs.
Mossad appears to have set up a shell company in Budapest to manufacture the pagers under license from a Taiwanese company. Israeli agents planted explosives inside the pagers before they reached Lebanon. The business expanded to produce thousands of pagers and required sophisticated manufacturing.
Israel detonated pagers earlier this month. When Hezbollah learned that its mobile radios had also been compromised, Israeli authorities quickly blew them up as well. The explosion also killed civilians, including children, and caused widespread panic in Lebanon.
Days later, Israeli forces killed Hezbollah’s top commander, Ibrahim Aqeel, in a bombing raid on his Beirut apartment where he was meeting with other senior commanders. They had been following Aqeel as he traveled between Beirut and southern Lebanon, where he oversaw fighters for the Hezbollah group and inspected tunnels that were intended to be used in the invasion of Israel.
As he entered his Beirut apartment and climbed the stairs to the operations room, Israel bombed the building, killing him and other senior Hezbollah commanders.
Zohar Parthi, a former Mossad official and Hezbollah expert, said: “Aqeel has the blood of many Americans, Israelis and soldiers from the coalition in Iraq on his hands.”
But there was no bigger target than Mr. Nasrallah. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu authorized the attack on Friday while in New York to address the United Nations General Assembly.
“The secret to their success lies in several factors,” said Asher, a former CIA analyst who worked with Israeli intelligence. “They have a clear targeting deck, which makes it much easier to focus on what they’re doing. They’re in a shadow war with Hezbollah and Iran. ”
“And they’re very patient,” he added.
Julie Tate and Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting.
