‘We Will Reach Everyone’: How Israel Hunted Nasrallah

Hezbollah began firing into northern Israel a day after its ally Hamas launched a brutal attack on southern Israel on October 7, triggering the ongoing war in Gaza.

Israel’s relatively low-level campaign against Hezbollah escalated dramatically on September 17 with sabotage attacks on pagers used by Hezbollah, followed the next day by explosions targeting the group’s two-way radios.

Robert Satloff of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy wrote that the explosives, which Israel did not claim, killed at least 39 people, injured almost 3,000 and “returned Hezbollah’s communications back to the stone age.”

Analysts said the operation reflected Israel’s Unit 8200 signals intelligence group making major progress in infiltrating Hezbollah’s communications devices.

In February, Nasrallah encouraged the use of pagers, which were later weaponized, by warning that “the cell phone you hold in your hand is a spying device.”

But military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told reporters that the attack on Nasrallah in Beirut on Friday went back years.

“We used the intelligence we had been trying to collect for years, and we had real-time information, and we carried out this attack,” he said.

Retired Colonel Miri Eisen, a senior researcher at Reichman University Israel’s International Counterterrorism Institute, also said that the attack was the product of a comprehensive study.

“Israel’s capabilities on Hezbollah show the depth of intelligence infiltration into Hezbollah lines,” he said, adding that these were “not something invented in the last 11 months after Hezbollah started attacking the north.”

Israeli officials said Nasrallah and other Hezbollah leaders gathered for a meeting on Friday at the group’s “headquarters” in the group’s main stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

While Israel was increasing its operations against Hezbollah, warplanes were hitting the region intensively.

A military video showed F15 jets taking off from Hatzerim Air Base on Friday to carry out the operation.

Just before 18.30 (1530 GMT) powerful explosions were heard in Lebanon’s capital.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Israel spent months planning how to use “a series of timed explosions” in the bunker beneath the residential buildings where Nasrallah would be located, and that “each explosion paved the way for the next.”

However, the newspaper also quoted Israeli officials as saying that the timing of the attack was “opportunistic after Israeli intelligence learned of the meeting hours before.”

This coincided with the UN General Assembly, meaning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was out of the country at the time.

His office would later release a photo showing him confirming the attack, which The Times of Israel said was apparently taken “at his hotel in New York.”

Israel did not specify the weapons used in the attack.

But the New York Times said analysis of a military video showed “at least 15 2,000-pound bombs were attached” to the aircraft used.

Senior officials told the newspaper that “more than 80 bombs were dropped over a period of several minutes” to kill Nasrallah. The Wall Street Journal reported that Israel hit the shelter with “80 tons of bombs.”

AFP photographers said the airstrikes left craters up to five meters (16 feet) in diameter.

The Lebanese health ministry initially announced that there were six dead and 91 injured in the raid.

Middle East expert James Dorsey said there was no doubt the attack represented a “very sophisticated” intelligence coup.

“This demonstrates not only significant technological capability, but also how deeply Israel has penetrated Hezbollah,” he said.

Heiko Wimmen of the International Crisis Group said the long-term effects on Hezbollah’s operations were unclear.

“While Hezbollah is institutionalized enough to not collapse by decapitation, the staggering loss of human resources will inevitably have a humiliating effect eventually,” said Wimmen, the think tank’s Iraq, Syria and Lebanon project director.

“The extensive intelligence leaks also make it doubtful whether they will be able to launch a strategic response or continue rocket attacks against northern Israel for much longer.”

For now, Israeli officials are celebrating Nasrallah’s death and considering whether to continue ground operations to eliminate the threat posed by Hezbollah along the northern border.

On Saturday, the army distributed a report quoting the squadron commander who shot Nasrallah as saying, “We will reach everyone, everywhere.”

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