The ability of Israel carrying out successful operations to eliminate senior representatives of the Lebanese armed group “Hezbollah”, the last of which was commander Fuad Shukr, raises a number of questions, writes in “Ash Sharq al-Awsat”.
Such operations use advanced technologies such as mobile phone tracking, facial recognition cameras, drones and satellites, but they would be useless without information on Hezbollah members. - where they live, what they look like, what their phone numbers are, Riyad Kahuaji, founder of the Institute for Military Analysis for the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, told the London-based Saudi publication. There are informers and spies on the ground who help with these murders, the expert emphasizes.
“If we assume that the leaders of “Hezbollah” don't use mobile phones, the only way to know that Shukr was in the shelled building is through someone who followed him and informed Israel of his location,” Kahuaji explains.
Retired General George Nader shares the same opinion. How could Israeli drones target a Hezbollah member as soon as he was in a particular location without such a network, he said. According to him, this would be impossible for a person outside the organization in Lebanon, as well as in Syria or Iran, and we are talking about internal agents.
The head of the Middle East Center for Strategic Studies - retired Brigadier General Hisham Jaber - notes that several factors are crucial to the success of Israeli operations. Israel has data on all Lebanese, including members of “Hezbollah” and its leaders. In addition, the Israeli services have modern technology, satellites, as well as the support of American and European intelligence. Gaps in the security measures of some members of the organization are also important.
Israel managed to conduct several successful operations against “Hezbollah” since the beginning of the conflict in the Gaza Strip, recalls “Ash Sharq al-Awsat”. In November, the son of the head of the Hezbollah faction was killed in a drone attack. in the Lebanese parliament, Mohammed Raad and four members of the elite forces “Ar Radwan”.
On January 2 this year, in an attack in the southern suburbs of Beirut, known as “the fortress” of the group in the Lebanese capital, the prominent member of “Hezbollah” Saleh al-Aruri during a meeting with the field commanders of the brigades “Al Qassam” in an apartment.
Days later, on January 8, Israeli forces managed to kill the head of “Ar Radwan” Wissam Tawil while traveling to his home in a village in southern Lebanon. Senior members Taleb Abdullah and Mohammed Nasser were liquidated in June and July respectively.
On Tuesday, the Israeli army announced that it had killed the head of the strategic division of “Hezbollah” and right-hand man of leader Hassan Nasrallah, Fuad Shukr, whom he considers responsible for the attack on a soccer field in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 children and youths.