It doesn't take a military expert to understand that the successful IDF operations against Hezbollah and the targeted killing of its leader Hassan Nasrallah, would not have been possible without exact intelligence that could point not only to the general vicinity of the terror group's underground bunker but also when to dispatch the dozens of munitions, including bunker-busting bombs, to destroy it and kill those inside.
IDF strikes Hezbollah's command bunker
The intelligence provided to the Israeli Air Force detailed the precise depth of the bunker and the exact location of the room where Nasrallah and other senior commanders and operatives gathered to plan their strategy for the war against Israel.
The intelligence allowed the pilots to calculate the angles that the bombs should hit and the altitude from which they should be dispatched to reach the right part of the bunker. This could only be obtained in a series of intelligence operations over an extensive time.
Everything that has unfolded in Lebanon in the past week and a half was the result of years of intelligence gathering that resulted in the elimination of Hezbollah's leadership and the systematic destruction of its arsenal of rockets, missiles and drones.
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Hezbollah's command bunker after being destroyed in an IDF strike
(Photo: Hussein Malla / AP)
First military intelligence used cyber technology and electronic intelligence gathering, mostly by the IDF's 8200 unit. Then the military gathered visual intelligence that could identify precise coordinates and locations and, finally, the military's 504 unit gathered information from human sources.
That information was provided to the Air Force to plan the strike. After the attacks, another intelligence effort was deployed to gauge the results of the strike and confirm its outcome.
But the Mossad likely laid the foundations for the entire effort in operations that will likely never be revealed.
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Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Mossad Chief David Barnea and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
(Photo: GPO)
According to security sources, the Mossad began planning the fight against Hezbollah over a decade ago. The agency studied the Shiite terror group's strengths and weaknesses and carried out a series of daring operations on the ground.
During the Second Lebanon War, the Mossad gathered intelligence that allowed the Air Force to target and destroy Iran's heavy missiles that would have caused devastation in Israel. This time, the intelligence gathering outshined the previous success, a former security official said. The Mossad had the advantage of new and improved technologies, but it mostly relied on its agents on the ground.