Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was killed on Friday amid a barrage of Israeli airstrikes against Lebanon. Reports now suggest that the other country had gleaned information about the militant leader through an Iranian mole. Thousands of pagers and other devices also exploded across Lebanon last week in a clear indication of the elevated Israeli intelligence network.
According to French newspaper Le Parisien, an Iranian mole had informed Israel about the location of Nasrallah ahead of the strike. The slain Hezbollah leader had been attending a meeting with several top members of the group when missiles stuck its underground headquarters in Beirut.
The assertion came even as Israel struck “dozens” of fresh Hezbollah targets in Lebanon on Sunday. Officials said they had killed yet another senior member of the militant group during an airstrike in Beirut on Saturday.
Nasrallah and other top commanders had gathered in Beirut to discuss strategies against Israel when the attack took place on Friday. The Israeli military reportedly used nearly 80 tons of explosives to target the heavily fortified bunker located more than 60 feet underground. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi had accused Israel of using “several 5,000-pound bunker busters that had been gifted to them by the US” in the hours following the attack.
Israel has recently launched widespread strikes targeting senior Hezbollah commanders and the group's weapons sites in southern and eastern Lebanon and in its south Beirut bastion. Netanyahu has called the death of Nasrallah “necessary” for his quest to return Israelis in the north who had fled Hezbollah attacks over the last 11 months to their homes.
Two Israeli officials told Reuters that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his close circle of ministers authorized the attack on Wednesday. The attack took place while Netanyahu was in New York to speak at the U.N. General Assembly.
(With inputs from agencies)
