Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Dec. 23 that Israel was behind the July 31 assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
It was the first time Israel formally admitted the intelligence coup, which it was widely assumed to have masterminded.
Haniyeh, Hamas’s overall leader, was killed by a bomb exploding in his Tehran guest room while he was in the Iranian capital for its new president’s inaugural.
The killing, a few hours after an Israeli airstrike took out Hezbollah military chief Fuad Shukr in Beirut, began the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Mossad’s chain of victories in eliminating Israel’s enemies’ leadership.
It was followed by an exploding pager attack against Hezbollah, an airstrike killing its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah in his underground bunker, the IDF’s killing of elusive Hamas military chief Yahya Sinwar, plus the elimination of scores of others in the two terrorist groups’ upper echelons.
Hezbollah’s leadership losses contributed significantly to the terrorist group, an implacable enemy of Israel, agreeing to a 60-day cease-fire in late November predicated on its own departure from south Lebanon, a separate peace its leaders previously had sworn they'd never make.
While Hamas has not agreed to free the 100 or so Israeli hostages, living or dead, it still holds, it has resumed hostage exchange and cease-fire negotiations with Israel.
Katz made the admission while addressing rising hostilities between Israel and Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
Israel has responded to Houthi rocket attacks aimed at Tel Aviv with air strikes on rebel-controlled Yemeni ports and energy infrastructure.
“We will behead the leaders of the Houthis, just as we did to Haniyeh, Sinwar, and Nasrallah,” Katz said, speaking at a Defense Ministry event.
The Houthis have been supplied and trained by Iran, also the patron of Hezbollah and Hamas.
Haniyeh was reportedly killed by a remotely controlled bomb triggered once confirmation was received that he was in his room.
He and one guard were killed.
The explosion shook the building, partially collapsed it, and shattered windows. Haniyeh had stayed in the government guest house several times.
The bold move showed Israel could strike even in a high-security location in its arch-enemy’s capital.
Netanyahu’s office in November said the prime minister had approved the pager attacks.
On Sept. 17, pagers used by thousands of Hezbollah middle- and high-level operatives—and those close to them, such as the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon—simultaneously exploded, wounding thousands and killing 30.
Many of the wounded were blinded or maimed.
A follow-up attack the next day similarly targeted Hezbollah handheld radios.
Details of the attack were revealed by two former Mossad agents on the CBS “60 Minutes” news program on Dec. 22.
The two, wearing masks and speaking with disguised voices, described a plot 10 years in the making.
The next phase of the plot began in 2022 after Mossad learned that Hezbollah was using Taiwan-made pagers in an attempt to circumvent Israeli cellphone surveillance.
Mossad enlarged the pagers to hold the explosives. It did trial runs with dummies to determine the amount of explosives needed to injure the user while minimizing harm to others nearby, they said.
It also tested ringtones to find one sounding urgent enough to ensure the user responded to it.
The new larger devices were advertised on YouTube as dustproof, waterproof, and having a longer battery life.
Using shell companies including one in Hungary concealed Mossad’s hand from both the Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo, and Hezbollah.
By September, Hezbollah’s men had about 5,000 of the pagers in their pockets or on their belts.
On Sept. 17, the pagers started beeping and then exploded whether or not their users pulled them from their pockets. The walkie-talkies exploded the next day, some at funerals for the 30 people killed in the pager attacks.
The devices were intended to injure rather than kill, the former agents said. The injured flooded Lebanon’s hospitals and emergency rooms.
“And those people without hands and eyes,” said one, code-named Gabriel, “are living proof, walking in Lebanon, of ‘don’t mess with us.’ They are walking proof of our superiority all around the Middle East.”
The Haniyeh and pager revelations appear to be part of a public relations effort by Netanyahu, as Israel has gained the upper hand in recent months, to showcase his leadership in a war now remaking the Middle East.
Netanyahu is on trial for longstanding corruption charges. He must face voters at some point, as well as an inquiry into the intelligence and security failings leading up to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
In a long interview published on Dec. 20, Netanyahu laid out the chronology of the war since Oct. 7.
He detailed the challenges faced and the decisions he made—often against U.S. wishes, in the face of international condemnation, and even against the wishes of much of Israel’s public and leadership.
His judgment, he said, has repeatedly been proven right.
“I was arguing for total victory, and they said there’s no such thing as victory,” he said.
