Military censorship in Israel allowed the publication of new information about the assassination of the former Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, and it is clear from it that reports about his whereabouts and his itineraries reached Tel Aviv a few days before his assassination, so the decision was taken at the highest levels, and the It was carried out with 14 raids on the buildings whose tunnels he entered, targeting even possible escape exits. It continued for several days, preventing any rescue operation for him or his companions.
Security sources in Tel Aviv indicate that the pursuit of Nasrallah for his assassination began in “Aman” (the Military Intelligence Division of the Israeli Army) and “Mossad” shortly after the 2006 war, but a political decision was not taken in this regard at the time. She decides to just follow his tracks, until the opportunity is found. When the time comes, the issue is discussed.
When Nasrallah decided to join Hamas in what he called the “war in support of Gaza,” the assassination plan began to advance, but it was decided that he would be misled and instill in him the idea that Israel did not intend to expand the war with him.
At the time, Hezbollah, on the one hand, and Israel, on the other, were keen to keep the war limited. Each of them shows the other that he does not intend to use all his weapons against the other. Thus, the deception operation began to take effect, until it expanded the war and ground attack on Lebanon.
It is clear that the Israeli escalation was decided on September 16, 2024, when it was announced that the efforts of American envoy Amos Hochstein to dissuade Hezbollah from supporting Gaza and reaching a ceasefire agreement were announced, because Hezbollah rejected the Israeli demand to disengage from the fighting in Gaza.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister at the time, Yoav Galant, announced that the return of the population of northern Israel was not possible unless a ground invasion of Lebanon was carried out. On September 17, the government’s security cabinet decided to launch the invasion plan. Netanyahu also decided, against the army’s wishes, to activate the plan to blow up the pagers, and the next day to blow up the radios. The two bombings led to the death of 59 people, including 4 civilians and 55 Hezbollah activists, and the injury of about 4,500 people, most of whom were active members of the party, including doctors working with the party, the Iranian ambassador to Beirut Mojtaba Amani, and 19 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. In Syria and Lebanon, dozens lost sight or a limb.
On September 19, Nasrallah delivered a speech in which he declared that he would not stop the fighting unless Israel stopped the war on Gaza. Israel used it as an excuse for escalation against Lebanon, and launched a series of escalation operations, culminating in the ground invasion in early October.
During this invasion, the work of 18 years of work in Israeli intelligence was revealed, collecting intelligence information through agents and electronic devices about all Hezbollah cadres, one by one, from the Secretary-General and the senior leadership, to the youngest group leader. Their trail was traced, step by step, with Nasrallah at the forefront.
A few days before the assassination, a military intelligence officer found out where Nasrallah was, so the head of AMAN, Shlomo Bandar, gathered the heads of departments and asked them to give an opinion on his assassination. It found unanimous support. He asked to hear another conservative or opposing opinion but found none, so he went to Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy, who approved the operation. It was submitted to Netanyahu personally, and he enthusiastically approved the assassination.
He began to confirm that this man is not the leader of Hezbollah, but rather the leader of a military organization that operates as if it were an army, and he has great weight among the Iranian arms, to the point that the Iranians rely on him to settle disputes between the poles.
It was decided that the process of clipping its wings would begin first, so Ibrahim Aqeel was assassinated on September 20, along with a group of leaders of the third and fourth ranks. Aqeel was Nasrallah’s right-hand man.
On September 23, the Chief of Staff launched an attack with fierce raids on a large group of Hezbollah bases and headquarters, including secret sites that only a few people knew about.
According to the army, it was able to destroy 80 percent of the party’s offensive military capabilities, and eliminate a large number of Hezbollah’s regional commanders.
Amir Bahbut, the military correspondent for the Walla website, which published a report on the subject on Sunday, says, “Nasrallah did not understand the symbols of those harsh and successive strikes. He remained committed to the link between Lebanon and Gaza. He added: “Nasrallah, who considers himself the greatest expert in knowledge of Israel and its way of thinking, sank into arrogance and arrogance, just as the leaders of the Israeli security services sank into arrogance and arrogance before October 7, 2023. It continued to move freely, and also moved above the ground, contrary to expectations. He did not expect to be assassinated, while the military intelligence officers were convinced of the necessity of assassinating him, and they poured all their effort into tracking his tracks, and they were bombing in a way that misled him and strengthened his conviction that he was not a target.
A few days before the assassination, they found his exact whereabouts, not only through tunnels, but also by moving above the ground. They expected his arrival to the headquarters located deep in the ground under a residential complex that includes 20 huge buildings connected to each other, in an upscale neighborhood in the southern suburb, to the west of which there is a forest of trees, and they decided that this was the opportunity of a lifetime that would rarely be repeated.
Within 4 days, Nasrallah’s movements were monitored at the highest levels. Israeli leaders, from Herzi Halevy to the commanders of the Air Force, participated in it, which was responsible for the implementation. The final research session was in the presence of Netanyahu in person. A squadron of aircraft was prepared, and 14 combat aircraft were supplied with weapons and ammunition, carrying 83 bombs weighing 80 tons. The implementation date was set at 18:21, during the Maghrib prayer.
Within 10 seconds, the process was complete. The buildings collapsed, and a huge deep hole was dug in the place. Possible exits were bombed to prevent anyone from escaping. The bombing did not stop for several days, preventing the activity of the Lebanese rescue and emergency forces. The decision was: “None of them must come out alive.”
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