The chief of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service has vowed that the agency would hunt down every Hamas member involved in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, no matter where they are.
His pledge came a day after the deputy head of the Palestinian group was killed in a suspected Israeli strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Israel has refused to comment on reports it carried out the killing, but the remarks by David Barnea appeared to be the strongest indication yet it was behind the blast.
He made a comparison to the aftermath of the slayings at the Munich Olympics in 1972, when Mossad agents tracked down and killed Palestinian militants involved in killing Israeli athletes.
Israel was on high alert Wednesday for an escalation with Hezbollah after the strike killed Saleh Arouri, the most senior Hamas member slain since the war in Gaza erupted nearly three months ago.
Barnea said the Mossad is “committed to settling accounts with the murderers who raided the Gaza envelope,” referring to the area of southern Israel that Hamas attacked. He vowed to pursue everyone involved, “directly or indirectly,” including “planners and envoys.”
“It’ll take time, as it took time after the Munich massacre, but we will put our hands on them wherever they are,” he said. Barnea was speaking at the funeral of former Mossad head Zvi Zamir, who died at age 98 a day earlier.
Zamir headed the intelligence agency at the time of the Munich attack, in which Palestinian militants killed 11 members of the Israeli Olympic delegation. Israel subsequently killed members of the Black September militant group who carried out the attack.
