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Hezbollah Releases Air Footage of Israel’s Haifa Shot by Surveillance Aircraft

A fire blazes on the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border following attacks from Lebanon, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in northern Israel June 18, 2024. (Reuters)
A fire blazes on the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border following attacks from Lebanon, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in northern Israel June 18, 2024. (Reuters)
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Hezbollah Releases Air Footage of Israel’s Haifa Shot by Surveillance Aircraft

A fire blazes on the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border following attacks from Lebanon, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in northern Israel June 18, 2024. (Reuters)
A fire blazes on the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border following attacks from Lebanon, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in northern Israel June 18, 2024. (Reuters)

Hezbollah released on Tuesday footage of airports and seaports in the Israeli city of Haifa shot by a surveillance aircraft in wake of Israel’s latest threat to escalate the fight with Lebanon should both parties fail to reach a political solution to end the war in southern Lebanon.

The 9:31 minute video, shot by Hezbollah’s “Hoodhood” aircraft, showed images of Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems facility and Haifa’s civilian and military port.

It also showed logistic facilities at the port, oil and chemical weapons containers, and military and commercial ships.

Footage of commercial and residential areas - home to 260,000 people - in the Krayot area on the outskirts of Haifa were also shown. Haifa itself lies 27 kilometers south of the Lebanese border.

Hezbollah said in the video that this was the first time it releases aerial footage from an area this deep in Israeli territory. It added that more videos will follow.

The party had already been releasing footage of specific areas it has targeted in its attacks on Israel.

The latest footage – should it be verified – demonstrates Hezbollah’s ability to breach Israeli air defenses, said Israeli media.

Media close to Hezbollah said the video was a “deterrence message” to Israel.

Meanwhile, on the ground, Hezbollah resumed on Tuesday its attacks against Israel after an undeclared truce that started on Saturday night ahead of the Eid al-Adha holiday.

In two separate statements, the Iran-backed party announced it launched a drone attack against an Israeli Merkava tank in the Hadab Yaren area.

It added that its fighters launched a drone attack targeting Israeli artillery and a gathering of officers and soldiers.

Both attacks struck their targets, it stressed.

Hezbollah explained the attacks were retaliation to Israel’s assassination of a party member in the town of al-Chehabieh on Monday.

Israeli media said it intercepted three drones in the north and that its defenses launched missiles to intercept “hostile aerial targets”.

An Israeli drone, meanwhile, struck a car north of the Lebanese city of Tyre, wounding seven people, including civilians. The identities of the passengers were not disclosed.

Israel also carried out air raids on Kfar Kila and al-Taybe.

An Israeli government spokesman said on Monday Hezbollah had launched over 5,000 attacks against Israel since the eruption of the war on Gaza on October 7. Hezbollah said last week it had carried out over 2,100 operations against Israel since the eruption of the conflict.

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Former Israeli Spies Describe Attack Using Exploding Electronic Devices against Lebanon’s Hezbollah

An ambulance rushes wounded people to the American University of Beirut Medical Center, on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon amid ongoing cross-border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah fighters. (Photo by Anwar AMRO / AFP)
An ambulance rushes wounded people to the American University of Beirut Medical Center, on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon amid ongoing cross-border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah fighters. (Photo by Anwar AMRO / AFP)
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Former Israeli Spies Describe Attack Using Exploding Electronic Devices against Lebanon’s Hezbollah

An ambulance rushes wounded people to the American University of Beirut Medical Center, on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon amid ongoing cross-border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah fighters. (Photo by Anwar AMRO / AFP)
An ambulance rushes wounded people to the American University of Beirut Medical Center, on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon amid ongoing cross-border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah fighters. (Photo by Anwar AMRO / AFP)

Two recently retired senior Israeli intelligence agents shared new details about a deadly clandestine operation years in the making that targeted Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and Syria using exploding pagers and walkie talkies three months ago.
Hezbollah began striking Israel almost immediately after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the Israel-Hamas war, The Associated Press said.
The agents spoke with CBS “60 Minutes” in a segment aired Sunday night. They wore masks and spoke with altered voices to hide their identities.
One agent said the operation started 10 years ago using walkie-talkies laden with hidden explosives, which Hezbollah didn't realize it was buying from Israel, its enemy. The walkie-talkies were not detonated until September, a day after booby-trapped pagers were set off.
“We created a pretend world,” said the officer, who went by the name “Michael.”
Phase two of the plan, using the booby-trapped pagers, kicked in in 2022 after Israel's Mossad intelligence agency learned Hezbollah had been buying pagers from a Taiwan-based company, the second officer said.
The pagers had to be made slightly larger to accommodate the explosives hidden inside. They were tested on dummies multiple times to find the right amount of explosive that would hurt only the Hezbollah fighter and not anyone else in close proximity.
Mossad also tested numerous ring tones to find one that sounded urgent enough to make someone pull the pager out of their pocket.
The second agent, who went by the name “Gabriel,” said it took two weeks to convince Hezbollah to switch to the heftier pager, in part by using false ads on YouTube promoting the devices as dustproof, waterproof, providing a long battery life and more.
He described the use of shell companies, including one based in Hungary, to dupe the Taiwanese firm, Gold Apollo, into unknowingly partnering with the Mossad.
Hezbollah also was unaware it was working with Israel.
Gabriel compared the ruse to a 1998 psychological film about a man who has no clue that he is living in a false world and his family and friends are actors paid to keep up the illusion.
“When they are buying from us, they have zero clue that they are buying from the Mossad,” Gabriel said. “We make like ‘Truman Show,’ everything is controlled by us behind the scene. In their experience, everything is normal. Everything was 100% kosher including businessman, marketing, engineers, showroom, everything.”
By September, Hezbollah militants had 5,000 pagers in their pockets.
Israel triggered the attack on Sept. 17, when pagers all over Lebanon started beeping. The devices would explode even if the person failed to push the buttons to read an incoming encrypted message.
The next day, Mossad activated the walkie-talkies, some of which exploded at funerals for some of the approximately 30 people who were killed in the pager attacks.
Gabriel said the goal was more about sending a message than actually killing Hezbollah fighters.
“If he just died, so he’s dead. But if he’s wounded, you have to take him to the hospital, take care of him. You need to invest money and efforts,” he said. “And those people without hands and eyes are living proof, walking in Lebanon, of ‘don’t mess with us.’ They are walking proof of our superiority all around the Middle East.”
In the days after the attack, Israel's air force hit targets across Lebanon, killing thousands. Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was assassinated when Israel dropped bombs on his bunker.
By November, the war between Israel and Hezbollah, a byproduct of the deadly attack by Hamas group in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, ended with a ceasefire. More than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas militants, health officials have said.
The agent using the name “Michael” said that the day after the pager explosions, people in Lebanon were afraid to turn on their air conditioners out of fear that they would explode, too.
“There is real fear,” he said.
Asked if that was intentional, he said, “We want them to feel vulnerable, which they are. We can’t use the pagers again because we already did that. We’ve already moved on to the next thing. And they’ll have to keep on trying to guess what the next thing is.”