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Israeli Airstrikes Kill 12 in Gaza, But Ground Fighting Less Intense

A Palestinian child plays near an unexploded Israeli missile among the rubble of a destroyed building at Khan Younis refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, 28 September 2024. (EPA)
A Palestinian child plays near an unexploded Israeli missile among the rubble of a destroyed building at Khan Younis refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, 28 September 2024. (EPA)
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Israeli Airstrikes Kill 12 in Gaza, But Ground Fighting Less Intense

A Palestinian child plays near an unexploded Israeli missile among the rubble of a destroyed building at Khan Younis refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, 28 September 2024. (EPA)
A Palestinian child plays near an unexploded Israeli missile among the rubble of a destroyed building at Khan Younis refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, 28 September 2024. (EPA)

Israeli airstrikes pounded areas across the Gaza Strip on Monday killing 12, including a journalist and her family, medics said, although the intensity of the ground offensive has subsided as Israel steps up its fight with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Palestinian health officials said Wafa Al-Udaini, who wrote articles about the war in English advocating the Palestinian viewpoint, was killed when a missile struck her house in the central city of Deir Al-Balah, also killing her husband and their two children, Reuters reported.
There has been no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Udaini's death raised the number of Palestinian journalists killed in the Israeli offensive since Oct. 7 to 174, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said.
In another strike, a Palestinian was killed and several were wounded in Rafah, near the border with Egypt, while in the northern town of Beit Hanoun an airstrike killed one man and injured others, medics said.
Later on Monday, an Israeli air strike on a house in Nuseirat, one of Gaza Strip's eight historic refugee camps, killed six people, health officials said.
Some residents said fighting and Israeli military activities in Gaza have declined slightly in the past week as Israel has escalated its military offensive against Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, killing its leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike on Friday. The group announced Nasrallah's death on Saturday.
While the intensity of the ground offensive has been lower, Israel has kept up its airstrikes in the enclave, they added.
Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel for almost a year, in support of its ally Hamas in Gaza.
In the southern Gaza Strip, Israeli authorities released 12 Palestinians, including Khaled Al-Ser, head of the surgery unit at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, medics and Hamas media said. Palestinians freed by Israel have complained of torture and ill-treatment in Israeli jails, charges Israel denies.
Israel and Hamas have been fighting since gunmen from the Palestinian militant group stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing about 250 hostages, going by Israeli tallies.
Most of Gaza's population of 2.3 million has been displaced by the war, in which more than 41,500 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza health authorities.

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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.”