ISRAEL'S SHADOWY INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

Mossad's history of elaborate hits: From kidnapping Adolf Eichmann to shooting Tehran's top nuclear weapons scientist with a satellite-controlled robot machine gunner, how the Hezbollah pager attack was just the latest show of ruthless Israeli ingenuity

By Perkin Amalaraj

 

Daily Mail

Sep 17, 2024

 

David Barnea, head of Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad

 

Yesterday's deadly pager attack that saw nine people die and more than 2,700 people injured across Lebanon has been blamed on Israel. 

Widespread panic and chaotic scenes were seen across Beirut's southern suburbs, the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon, while in neighbouring Syria 14 people were injured by the blasts, according to Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. 

More than 2,750 people were injured across Lebanon, with more than 300 people in a critical condition, after pagers used by proscribed terror group Hezbollah detonated over a period of an hour yesterday afternoon.

The scenes of terror across Lebanon and Syria were reportedly caused by Israel's shadowy intelligence agency Mossad, which collaborated with the IDF to plant explosives in the pagers. 

Mossad has a long history of elaborate stunts on foreign soil, first gaining infamy after successfully carrying out the daring 1960 capture of high-ranking Nazi Adolf Eichmann, one of the key architects of the Holocaust. 

After the agency was tipped off that Eichmann, who fled Germany in the last days of the Second World War, was hiding in Buenos Aires, Argentina, they sent out a top investigator to sniff around for clues. 

Following weeks of investigation, they located and identified the sick Nazi, who by then was living as 'Ricardo Klement', in Argentina's capital city as a labourer, a quiet and peaceful life that stood in stark contrast to the misery and suffering he wrought on millions. 

 

Mossad found infamy after successfully carrying out the daring 1960 capture of high-ranking Nazi Adolf Eichmann (pictured) 

Mossad assassinated Mohsen Fakhrizadeh (pictured), chief of Iran's nuclear programme in 2020

More than 2,750 people were injured across Lebanon, with more than 300 people in a critical condition

 

Israel's then-prime minister David Ben-Gurion, assessing that Argentina was unlikely to formally extradite Eichmann, decided to commission Mossad to kidnap him and bring him to Israel to stand trial for his crimes. 

On 11 May 1960, Eichmann was approached by Mossad agents as he arrived home from work by bus. They approached him, asking him if he had a moment, before putting him on the ground, sticking him in a car and concealing him with a blanket before moving him to a safehouse already prepped for his arrival. 

There, he was held for nine days as investigators worked to completely confirm his identity. 

He was then sedated, before being stuck on an El Al flight with a fake passport back to Israel, where he stood trial for his crimes. 

Though Eichmann is perhaps the most famous example of a Mossad target, the agency has had plenty of other high-profile, even deadlier, incidents. 

The most notable was in 2020, shortly after the US took out Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, when Mossad assassinated Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, chief of Iran's nuclear programme. 

Fakhrizadeh led Iran's uraniam enrichment programme, as well as the military's research and development wing. 

 

The stunning incident saw scores of Hezbollah members severely injured throughout southern Lebanon and in its capital Beirut

The pagers were seen detonating across Lebanon

The pagers are believed to have been packed with explosives by Mossad 

Thousands of people, Hezbollah members and civilians alike, were injured

 

On November 27 2020, he was assassinated while driving on a rural road near Tehran. 

Though exact details of his death are up for debate, it is believed that he was killed by a remotely-operated machine gun on the back of a car that had pulled up next to his. 

He was reportedly his 13 times from a distance of 150m, before the gun-carrying car blew up, according to an account corroborated by Ali Shamkhani of Iran's Supreme National Security Council.

Mossad, along with the IDF, were also reported involved in the pager bombings on Tuesday.

The security service and military are said to have filled the pagers, which Hezbollah ordered the pagers from a Taiwanese company called Gold Apollo, with one or two ounces of explosive material along with a detonating switch. 

The detonators activated at around 3.30pm local time (1.45pm UK time) on Tuesday after receiving a message as though it was coming from Hezbollah's top brass. But instead, the message activated the explosives.  

 

An image grab taken from a UGC video posted on social media on September 17, 2024, shows men covered in blood in Beirut's southern suburbs after dozens of Hezbollah group members were injured when their pagers exploded

At least nine people have been killed in the pager bombings

 

Video footage from inside a Beirut supermarket appears to show the moment Israel sent out its deadly message. 

A Hezbollah attacker was seen confusedly lifting his shirt up at a supermarket after getting a message on his pager, which lit up.

He stared at it for a second before it detonated, collapsing him in an instant as supermarket workers and fellow shoppers panicked and fled.  

Though Israel may have intended to take out Hezbollah fighters, nearly 3,000 people, many of whom are civilians, were grievously injured in the spate of explosions.

Harrowing video footage taken inside medical institutes in the country's capital, Beirut, has revealed the severe consequences of the simultaneous explosions, which Hezbollah and Lebanon's government have blamed Israel for.