After suffering widespread criticism when Hamas led an unprecedented surprise attack on the country almost a year ago on October 7, the Israeli intelligence services are currently seeking to restore their reputation with a series of successful and surprising operations, the latest of which is the assassination of Hezbollah leader in Beirut, Hassan Nasrallah.
While avoiding full details by Israel, Israeli spy agencies have been linked to some major losses to Hamas, Hezbollah and their regional ally, Iran, since the beginning of the war in Gaza, last October. These casualties include the killing of senior Hamas and Hezbollah leaders and other senior officials, along with an increasing series of mysterious actions that have emerged in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and within Iran itself.
As the conflict expands and deepens, and Israel opens a new land front against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and faces a second wave of Iranian missile strikes, questions increase regarding the nature of the work of the various Israeli intelligence services, which political experts say to the Al-Hurra website that they played a pivotal role in the previous period.
A very important role
David Morrison, a professor of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Al-Hurra website, “The role of Israeli intelligence during the war is very important in many tasks.”
Morrison adds, “These tasks boil down to identifying targets, understanding the damage inflicted on the enemy, as well as identifying enemy targets. All high-profile assassinations and precision attacks were the result of good intelligence transmitted from advanced sources.”
However, the political science professor claims that “the problem from October 7th until today is related to the ability to deeply understand the logic and plans of the enemies.” “There is a gap between extraordinary operational capabilities and the ability to analyze the logic of others, which is still full of problems,” he warned.
He said, “As a general rule, the narratives spread about Mossad, Shin Bet, and Military Intelligence have nothing to do with their actual capabilities, because most of them are unknown.”
The debate continues over responsibility for the failure to detect the Hamas-led attack last October, with fingers pointed at several intelligence, military and political officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A number of them resigned over this issue, including the head of the security service and the head of the southern region of Shin Bet.
Regarding the intelligence’s success in infiltrating Hezbollah and assassinating most of its members and leaders, Morrison believes that “Syria was the beginning of Hezbollah’s expansion outside Lebanon, and this weakened their internal control mechanisms and opened the door to infiltration on a large scale.”
He said, “The war in Syria also created a fountain of data, most of which is available to the public and to Israeli intelligence agents and their algorithms to digest and analyze.”
He added, “The obituary of the dead, in the form of ‘martyrs posters’ that Hezbollah regularly uses, was one of these statements, which was filled with small information, including the city to which the fighter belonged, the place where he was killed, and his circle of friends who spread the news on social media.” “Sociability and funerals were more revealing, sometimes bringing senior leaders out of the shadows, if only briefly.”
He continued, “They were forced to reveal themselves in Syria, and the secret group was suddenly forced to maintain contact and exchange information with the corrupt and notorious Syrian intelligence service, or with the Russian intelligence services, which were under regular surveillance by the Americans.”
Failure in Gaza and success against Hezbollah
The Israeli expert, Avi Aron, told Al-Hurra website, “The October 7th attack represents a miserable failure for Israel and begins with its army, which when it left Gaza and left it under the authority of Hamas, lost control and resources.”
He added, “Hezbollah, widely viewed as one of the most powerful paramilitary groups in the world and Iran’s most important ally, has long been considered by Israel to be a more dangerous threat than Hamas.”
He continued, “Gaza was not a target for collecting information at the top of the list of Israeli intelligence priorities, while Hezbollah and Iran were for decades,” noting that “despite everything, Israel is a small country with limited resources, and must make difficult choices in Determine the areas you should focus on.
Aaron said, “Israel incorrectly estimated that Hamas is largely incapable of launching a large-scale ground invasion. It is surprising that Israel may not have had even a single human element within Hamas before October 7.”
He added, “Over the next two decades, Israel’s advanced Signal Intelligence Unit 8200 and the Directorate of Military Intelligence, called AMAN, mined massive amounts of data to map the rapidly growing militias in Israel’s northern arena.”
He continued, “Over the past years, Israeli intelligence has expanded its vision of Hezbollah in its entirety, looking beyond its military wing to its political ambitions, its growing ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and Nasrallah’s relationship with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.”
He explained, “To fill this current gap in Gaza, Aman and Shin Bet doubled their intelligence gathering efforts in the Strip, working with Israeli army forces to track enemy locations, infrastructure, and high-value targets. As a result, dozens of leading Hamas figures were killed in Gaza, and The most prominent allegations are the killing of the commander of the Al-Qassam Brigades, Muhammad Deif, and his deputy, Marwan Issa.” However, Hamas has not yet confirmed the killing of either of them yet.
Aaron believes that “despite the presence of intelligence gaps, the Israeli intelligence strategy is somehow regaining its successes, based on the recent victories in Lebanon in particular.”
What has changed since October 7, as the Israeli expert says, is “the depth and quality of intelligence information that Israel was able to rely on in the past two months, starting with the assassination of Fouad Shukr, one of Nasrallah’s right-hand men, on July 30, while he was visiting a friend not far from him.” The site of the bombing that targeted Nasrallah.
Israeli intelligence map
As in the United States and many other countries, the Israeli intelligence community consists of different agencies dealing with different, but sometimes overlapping, missions.
Mossad
These entities include the Mossad, which deals with foreign affairs, the Israeli Security Service (Shin Bet or Shin Bet), which is in charge of the home front, and the Directorate of Military Intelligence (AMAN), which is in charge of military affairs.
Mossad is also known as the Institute for Intelligence and Special Missions, because the word Mossad in Hebrew means “institute.” This agency is responsible for collecting human intelligence information, covert work, and combating terrorism. It focuses on Arab countries and organizations around the world. The Mossad is also responsible for the secret transportation of Jewish refugees from Syria, Iran, and Ethiopia. Mossad agents work in former communist countries, in the West, and in the United Nations.
The Mossad’s headquarters is located in Tel Aviv. The identity of the Mossad director was a state secret, or at least not widely known, until the government announced in March 1996 the appointment of Danny Yatom as the successor to Mossad director Shabtai Shavit, who resigned in early 1996. As of June 2021, David Barnea became its chief. The 13 successors to Yossi Cohen.
The Mossad, formerly known as the Central Coordination Institute and the Central Institute for Intelligence and Security, was established on April 1, 1951, and was founded by then Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, who gave the basic direction to the Mossad: “For our state, which since its inception has been under siege by its enemies. Intelligence constitutes the first line of defense.” “We must learn well how to recognize what is going on around us,” according to the Mossad website.
The Mossad consists of eight departments, although some details of the agency’s internal organization remain mysterious, according to the Intelligence Resources Program website.
The Collection Department is the largest, and is responsible for espionage operations, and has offices abroad under diplomatic and unofficial cover. The department consists of a number of offices responsible for specific geographic areas, directing case officers stationed at “stations” around the world, and the clients they control. Beginning in 2000, the Mossad embarked on an advertising campaign to promote the recruitment of collection officers.
The Political Action and Communications Department is concerned with political activities and contact with friendly foreign intelligence services and with countries with which Israel does not have normal diplomatic relations. At larger stations, such as Paris, the Mossad usually had two regional observers under embassy cover, one to serve the Collections Department and the other the Political Action and Communications Department.
As for the Special Operations Division, also known as “Mitsada”, it conducts assassination plots, paramilitary operations, and highly sensitive psychological warfare.
As for the Department of Psychology (LAP), it is responsible for psychological warfare, propaganda and deception operations.
Then comes the Research Department, which is responsible for producing intelligence information, including daily situation reports, weekly summaries and detailed monthly reports. This department is organized into 15 geographically specialized departments or “offices,” including the United States of America, Canada, Western Europe, Latin America, the countries of the former Soviet Union, China, Africa, the Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia), Libya, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and Iran. The Nuclear Office focuses on special issues related to weapons.
Regarding the Technology Department, it is responsible for developing advanced technologies to support Mossad operations. In April 2001, the Mossad published an advertisement in the Israeli press for an “assistance wanted” seeking electronic engineers and computer scientists for the Mossad’s technology unit.
The Mossad maintains many Israeli secret agents in Arab countries and elsewhere. The most famous of these was Eli Cohen, a Jew of Egyptian origin who infiltrated the highest ranks of the Syrian government disguised as a Syrian businessman before he was discovered and executed in 1965, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.
The Mossad and its agents carried out covert operations against Israel’s enemies and former Nazi war criminals living abroad. Mossad agents tracked down and assassinated those responsible for the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. The Mossad was also linked to several assassinations of Palestinian leaders in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, according to the encyclopedia website.
safety
According to the Jewish Virtual Library website, Aman is known as the Military Intelligence Division, and was headed by Aharon Halivo before he submitted his resignation last April following the October 7 attack.
AMAN is among the oldest Israeli intelligence services, which was established immediately after the formation of Israel.
It is affiliated with the Israeli Army Security, and is responsible for collecting and analyzing military information, and works in coordination with the rest of the other Israeli intelligence services, such as the Foreign Intelligence Service (Mossad) and the Internal Security Service (Shin Bet).
As its name suggests, its function is to provide intelligence that will allow the government to keep the country safe and secure. It compiles daily reports used to brief the Prime Minister and the government, assess the potential for war, intercept communications and manage cross-border missions.
AMAN consists of three main units: 8200, 9900, and 504. Israeli newspapers said that the intelligence operation responsible for the success of targeting Nasrallah specifically involved the cooperation of these three units.
Unit 8200 is considered the largest unit in the Military Intelligence Division. Its mission is to collect key information, in addition to developing tools for collecting information and constantly updating them, analyzing and processing data, and delivering information to the competent authorities. This unit often participates and carries out its work from within combat zones.
Unit 9900 is responsible for collecting geographic and visual intelligence, and deals with the fields of optical decoding, precise mapping, and satellite mapping.
The unit plays an essential role in the strategic planning of operations and countermeasures. It is called the “younger sister” of Unit 8200. It was founded in 1948 in its initial form, before it developed and expanded and included several smaller units under it.
As for Unit 504, also called the “Human Intelligence Group,” it is a military intelligence unit in the Israeli army. It collects its intelligence information by recruiting agents outside places of Israeli control in the border areas of Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt, as well as in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Unit 504 focuses on working inside Lebanon more than any other region, and collects its information through the use of advanced equipment, collecting data from the field, and bringing information about various infrastructure, all of which are often used in planning military operations for the Israeli army.
Shin Bet
As for the Shin Bet, according to the Jewish Defense Library website, this agency deals with internal intelligence affairs in Israel, and is believed to be equivalent to the American Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The Shin Bet is also known as Shin Bet, and its motto is “Defend and not be seen.”
The Shin Bet protects Israel’s Prime Minister and other senior leaders, national airline security, and protects sensitive sites domestically and abroad.
According to Britannica, his reputation took a hit in the 1980s after it was revealed that his agents had beaten to death Palestinians detained in connection with a hijacked bus. He was also criticized for torturing Palestinian detainees and assassinating Palestinian activists.
The Shin Bet also came under heavy criticism for the assassination of then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, after which its head resigned.
