Israel has revised its espionage tools to kill Hezbollah leader FT

The security services searched through vast amounts of data, relying on high-tech methods to gather information, the paper said

Israel was able to assassinate Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah only after overhauling its intelligence-gathering approach and focusing its efforts on combing through large amounts of data, the Financial Times reported on Monday, citing experts.

Nasrallah was a top Israeli military target for decades before he died in an airstrike last week. In the 2006 Lebanon War alone, he survived several assassination attempts.

Israeli intelligence services have significantly increased the depth and quality of their intelligence gathering on Hezbollah and began treating it as a well-organized “terror army” after the war in Syria began, the FT said.

Because Hezbollah was fighting in the neighboring country, it had to increase its recruitment, making it more vulnerable to Israeli spies.

The Syrian conflict has become a “data source” for Israel, which has digitally processed a wide range of information – including obituaries, data on the birthplaces of deceased fighters and their circle of friends, the article says. According to the FT, the funerals were extremely useful as they often brought Hezbollah commanders out of the shadows.

As a result of the fighting in Syria, Hezbollah has “evolved from an extremely disciplined and purist state to someone that lets in many more people than it should have,” said Yezid Sayigh, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center, adding The group became more and more complacent and arrogant.

Israeli spy satellites, drones, and data and image processing and hacking capabilities also advanced during this period.

Furthermore, after the Israel-Hamas war began last October, West Jerusalem appeared to have “lulled Nasrallah into believing that the two arch-rivals were engaged in a new kind of risky maneuver,” as Israel and Hezbollah delivered cross-border attacks that further escalated.

Earlier this month, a wave of pager and portable radio detonations targeting Hezbollah officials swept across the Middle East, killing and maiming dozens. According to the Financial Times, the Israelis were also able to pinpoint Nasrallah’s location by striking an underground compound in Beirut with devastating force, killing the longtime leader.

In response, Hezbollah vowed to continue “its jihad in the fight against the enemy,” while Iran, the group’s main backer, vowed to avenge his death. As a result, the Israeli military was placed on high alert to ward off possible retaliation.

(RT.com)