Israel overhauled spying tools to kill Hezbollah leader – FT
Israel was able to assassinate Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah only after overhauling its approach to intelligence gathering, focusing its efforts on scouring large amounts of data, the Financial Times reported on Monday, citing experts.
Nasrallah was a priority Israeli military target for decades before his death from an air strike last week. He survived several assassination attempts during the 2006 Lebanon War alone.
Israeli secret services significantly increased the depth and quality of their intelligence gathering on Hezbollah and began treating it as a well-organized “terror army,” following the beginning of the war in Syria, the FT said.
As Hezbollah fought in the neighboring country, it had to step up recruitment, making it more vulnerable to Israeli spies.
The Syrian conflict became “a fountain of data” for Israel, which digitally processed multiple pieces of information – including obituaries, data on deceased fighters’ birthplaces, and their circle of friends, the article said. According to the FT, the funerals were extremely useful because they often brought Hezbollah commanders out of the shadows.
As a result of the fighting in Syria, Hezbollah “went from being highly disciplined and purists to someone who let in a lot more people than they should have,” Yezid Sayigh, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center, said, adding that the group grew increasingly complacent and arrogant.
Israeli spy satellites, drones, and data and image processing and hacking capabilities also advanced during this time.
Moreover, after the start of the Israel-Hamas war last October, West Jerusalem appeared “to have lulled Nasrallah into thinking that the two arch-rivals were involved in a new sort of brinkmanship,” as Israel and Hezbollah exchanged cross-border strikes without further escalation.
Earlier this month, a wave of pager and portable radio detonations targeting Hezbollah officials swept through the Middle East, killing and maiming dozens. According to the FT, the Israelis were also able to pinpoint Nasrallah’s location, striking an underground compound in Beirut with devastating force that killed the longtime leader.
In response, Hezbollah pledged to continue “its jihad in confronting the enemy,” while Iran, the group’s key backer, vowed to avenge his death. As a result, the Israeli military was put on high alert to fend off any potential retaliation.
