Deep intelligence penetration allowed Israel to kill Hassan Nasrallah | Hezbollah

A hundred munitions – believed to include US-made 2,000-pound bombs – were used by the Israeli Air Force in the stunning airstrike Friday evening that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah at a hidden underground complex in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahieh.

Nasrallah, who was cautious to the point of paranoia with his security precautions and rarely appeared in public, would have taken little notice of his plan to make the fateful trip to the meeting.

But Hezbollah's intelligence penetration was so deep that Israel knew that Nasrallah and other surviving members of Hezbollah's already decimated leadership would meet at the supposedly secret location – and that an order to bomb them could be given.

Benjamin Netanyahu had to give permission for the attack from New York, where the Israeli prime minister had given a bellicose speech to the UN General Assembly. There was probably hardly any time to wait.

According to an unfounded report in the French newspaper Le Parisien, the mole who informed the Israelis that Nasrallah was on his way to the bunker was an Iranian. If true, that would be eye-catching considering Iran is Hezbollah's main backer.

Reports of the planning behind the attack indicate that Israel had been eyeing the site for some time. The commander of the 69th squadron of F-15I jets that carried out the attack, identified in Israeli media only as Lt. Col. M, said the aircrews involved were preparing for “several days,” although they had little knowledge of the intended target were announced hours in advance. The F-15I jets were armed for attack and destruction underground, requiring a large amount of explosives that were also capable of destroying the buildings above.

A video released by the Israel Defense Forces on Saturday of the jets “taking off to attack from Hatzerim Air Base” showed eight U.S.-made F-15Is. A launch aircraft is loaded with several rockets, under the wings and on the tail. Experts said they appeared to be U.S.-made BLU-109 2,000-pound bombs of the class that the Biden administration withheld from Israel over the summer amid concerns about their use in the densely populated Gaza Strip.

Justin Bronk, an aviation expert at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) think tank, said the Israeli air force would likely have used 2,000-pound guided direct-attack missiles equipped with penetrating detonators designed to explode after hitting a building or the ground. Israeli Air Force officers said about 100 munitions were used and bombs were dropped “every two seconds” in the attack, dubbed “Operation New Order.”

Four residential buildings were hit, three were completely destroyed leaving only smoldering craters, and two others were damaged by the attack. Initial local estimates suggest 300 people were killed, although the official toll in Lebanon is 11 dead and 108 injured. Israel said it killed more than 20 Hezbollah members and that the attack was justified because “Nasrallah deliberately built Hezbollah's headquarters under residential buildings in Dahiya.”

Brigadier General Amichai Levine, commander of Hatzerim Air Base, where the 69th Squadron is based, provided further details of the planning. The first challenge in what he coolly called “elimination operations” was precise intelligence; The second option, he said at a briefing, is to ensure that the target “does not escape while the aircraft are en route or the munitions are on the way to the target” – for example, by not receiving early warning that The combat aircraft in use are in the air and on the way.

An intriguing question is why Nasrallah felt it necessary to meet other Hezbollah members in person. Nearly two weeks ago, Israel's war against Hezbollah intensified with the explosion of the militant group's sabotaged pagers and walkie-talkies that may have injured up to 1,500 people – low-tech that Nasrallah favored because he distrusted the capabilities of cellphones become. Given the distrust of all electronic means, a face-to-face meeting may have been the only way to discuss Israel's escalation of the crisis with close colleagues.

In any case, it is now clear that over the last two weeks, Israel has developed a premeditated plan to attack and destroy Hezbollah's military leadership, from the pager attack to multiple rounds of airstrikes, causing devastating damage to the Lebanese civilian population in the process has caused. An estimated million people have been displaced and several hundred killed, a price Jerusalem considers acceptable as it seeks to stop Hezbollah's attacks on northern Israel and allow 65,000 Israelis to return home from the border area.

Israel's success in killing Nasrallah and other leaders can only be attributed to an intelligence penetration of Hezbollah that stands in sharp contrast to Hamas' misjudgment of its intentions before October 7. Matthew Savill, a military analyst at Rusi, said Israel likely “spent years building and maintaining a comprehensive intelligence picture” of Hezbollah, with “an element of human sources involved to keep it updated.”

This, he argued, “makes it even clearer that Hamas failed to detect and prevent the operation last year and lends weight to the theory that it focused on Lebanon and Iran at the expense of Gaza.” Credibility.”