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Last Februa­ry Has­san Nasral­lah, lea­der of the Leba­ne­se Shii­te pro-Ira­nian par­ty Hez­bol­lah, had orde­red its mem­bers to get rid of any mobi­le pho­ne: «they’re dead­ly agen­ts». It seems like it was pre­ci­se­ly a pho­ne call that doo­med Fuad Shu­kr, mili­ta­ry lea­der of the Par­ty of God, who was kil­led last July in an Israe­li tar­ge­ted stri­ke in Beirut.

In order to elu­de Israe­li sophi­sti­ca­ted spy­ing tech­ni­ques, Hez­bol­lah lea­ders resor­ted to more tra­di­tio­nal means, as old Inter­net-free devi­ces. But this wasn’t enou­gh: on 17^th and 18^th Sep­tem­ber, two waves of explo­sions acti­va­ted by pagers and wal­kie-tal­kies hit sol­diers and civi­lians throu­ghout all of Leba­non and Syria. Despi­te the small quan­ti­ty of explo­si­ve each devi­ce held (1–2 oun­ces), the­re were more than thir­ty dea­ths and over two thou­sand injured. 

Accor­ding to recon­struc­tions, the pagers’ explo­sion was cau­sed by one mes­sa­ge, which made them beep. This led many peo­ple to pick them up or bring them clo­se to the face: this is why hospi­tals faced seve­ral dama­ges to the limbs and blind­ness for appro­xi­ma­te­ly five hun­dred peo­ple. Israel didn’t claim the stri­ke, but eve­ry­thing poin­ts towards them: they have the requi­red intel­li­gen­ce capa­bi­li­ty for the ope­ra­tion, and they pro­mi­sed they would aggra­va­te their attacks again­st Sou­thern Leba­non to resto­re order and bring back home the over six­ty thou­sand displa­ced peo­ple in Upper Galilee. 

Lebanese authorities state that the pagers had been sabotaged before their distribution throughout the country.

So, at which point of the pro­duc­tion chain did Israe­li intel­li­gen­ce mana­ge to infil­tra­te? The AR924 pagers that explo­ded come from Gold Apol­lo, a Tai­wa­ne­se com­pa­ny which dis­so­cia­ted itself from the manu­fac­tu­ring, sin­ce it had been outsour­ced to the Hun­ga­rian com­pa­ny BAC Consulting.

Some Israe­li offi­cials told the New York Times that the Buda­pe­st-based com­pa­ny, foun­ded in 2022, is actual­ly a shell cor­po­ra­tion crea­ted by Israe­li secret ser­vi­ces to pro­du­ce sabo­ta­ge pagers and hand them over to Hez­bol­lah. Icom, the wal­kie-tal­kies com­pa­ny, in turn sta­ted that IC-V28 pro­to­ty­pes (who­se pro­duc­tion has rea­ched dead­lock in 2014) are very fre­quen­tly coun­ter­feit.

This is not the fir­st time the Mos­sad (the Israe­li intel­li­gen­ce agen­cy spe­cia­li­zed in forei­gn ope­ra­tions) asto­ni­shes eve­ryo­ne. It was them that in 1960 found, arre­sted and moved to Israel Adolf Eich­mann, a nazi offi­cial hiding in Ger­ma­ny under the name of Ricar­do Kle­ment. David Ben Gurion (Israel’s foun­der and pri­me mini­ster) him­self had requi­red his arre­st, whi­le pri­me mini­ster Gol­da Meir agreed to 1972 Ope­ra­tion “Wrath of God”, in respon­se to the slaughter of Israel athle­tes at that year’s Olym­pic Games in Munich.

In that case, Mossad’s goal was to get rid of the lea­der of Pale­sti­nian ter­ro­ri­st orga­ni­za­tion Black Sep­tem­ber: the ope­ra­tion began with the kil­ling of inter­pre­ter Wael Zwai­ter in Rome, and ended in 1979 with the mur­der of lea­der Ali Has­san Sala­meh in Bei­rut. Mea­n­whi­le, author Mah­moud Ham­sha­ri was eli­mi­na­ted too in Paris, sin­ce he was belie­ved to be the num­ber-two man in Black Sep­tem­ber. He died becau­se of a fake journalist’s pho­ne call, which acti­va­ted the remo­te­ly con­trol­led bomb under his desk. Some­thing simi­lar hap­pe­ned seve­ral years later with Hamas pro­mi­nent mem­ber Yahya Abd al Latif Ayyash (nic­k­na­med “the Engi­neer” due to his skill in assem­bling bombs), who was kil­led in 1996 by nitro­sa­mi­nes hid­den in his mobi­le phone.

Apart from targeting the leaders of Hamas, Mossad has lately been focusing on sabotaging the Iranian nuclear program.

In 2018, pri­me mini­ster Ben­ja­min Neta­nya­hu unvei­led some of the 55 thou­sand clas­si­fied docu­men­ts and 183 CD-ROMs sei­zed by Israe­li intel­li­gen­ce from a sto­ra­ge in Tehe­ran. In 2020, Moh­sen Fakh­ri­za­deh (the phy­si­ci­st and gene­ral in char­ge of Iran’s nuclear pro­gram) was kil­led by a machi­ne gun, which was remo­te­ly con­trol­led throu­gh arti­fi­cial intel­li­gen­ce. Israel didn’t claim the mur­der, just like they never disclo­sed their invol­ve­ment in the 2021 sabo­ta­ge of the Natanz nuclear site: a cyber­ne­tic attack by the Mos­sad alle­ged­ly dama­ged and in some cases destroyed cen­tri­fu­ges in the under­ground nuclear site, which were essen­tial to ura­nium enrichment.

Whi­le what hap­pe­ned in Leba­non to Hez­bol­lah sol­diers was unex­pec­ted, it wasn’t the fir­st time the Israe­li intel­li­gen­ce coun­ter­fei­ted and took advan­ta­ge of tech­no­lo­gy for their pur­po­ses. Likewi­se, it’s not uncom­mon for the Mos­sad to nei­ther con­firm nor deny their invol­ve­ment in the ope­ra­tion; and it isn’t uncom­mon the atten­tion for the spec­ta­cu­lar natu­re of it, either.

Howe­ver, it’s the fir­st instan­ce of such an exten­ded civi­lian-impac­ting sco­pe. This fol­lo­ws a pre­ci­se stra­te­gy: as histo­ry tells us, intel­li­gen­ce ope­ra­tions always com­ply with govern­ment needs, from Ben Gurion to Gol­da Meir, up to “Bibi” Neta­nya­hu. The cur­rent pri­me mini­ster has alrea­dy com­man­ded one of the intel­li­gen­ce most daring and disa­strous ope­ra­tions, which is to say injec­ting lethal poi­son insi­de Hamas lea­der Kha­led Meshal’s ear in Amman, Jor­dan. The two appoin­ted agen­ts were arre­sted and Israel had to give the anti­do­te to the Jor­da­nian king.

Never­the­less, now Neta­nya­hu seems more reso­lu­te: as Iran rear­ran­ges the ranks of the Axis of Resi­stan­ce, ban­ning com­mu­ni­ca­tion devi­ces and veri­fy­ing the safe­ty of their mili­ta­ry equi­p­ment, the IDF car­ried out air raids on Sou­thern and Eastern Leba­non on 23^rd Sep­tem­ber, hit­ting 1,300 Hez­bol­lah tar­ge­ts and kil­ling over 500 peo­ple, inclu­ding at lea­st 30 chil­dren. Perhaps, one could say that the ori­gi­na­li­ty of this ope­ra­tion in Leba­non isn’t to be found in its cir­cum­stan­ces, insti­ga­tors or goals; it’s the con­se­quen­ces that will make the late­st Israe­li intel­li­gen­ce stri­ke one of a kind.

Nina Fre­sia

Stu­den­tes­sa di scien­ze poli­ti­che, curio­sa per natu­ra, aspi­ran­te gira­mon­do e avi­da let­tri­ce con un debo­le per la sto­ria e la filo­so­fia. Scri­vo per rea­liz­za­re il sogno del­la me bam­bi­na e rac­con­ta­re attra­ver­so i miei occhi quel­lo che scopro.