Top Mossad official: Agents worked under fire in Beirut during Nasrallah assassination

Israeli President Isaac Herzog has awarded the Israel Defense Prize to Israel’s foreign intelligence agency Mossad for its role in the operation that killed former Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut’s southern suburbs last year.

At the ceremony at Herzog’s residence in Jerusalem, a Mossad recruitment and operations officer, identified only as “G”, spoke on behalf of the agency and disclosed new details of the operation.

“This operation was born when an ambitious technological idea, almost a fantasy, met the best technical minds,” G said. “Thanks to collaboration between the IDF (Israeli army), Mossad, the Defense R&D Directorate, defense industries, and academia, this fantasy became a far-reaching reality. Yet groundbreaking technology alone is not enough. Precise intelligence and daring operational capability -- sometimes risking lives in the heart of an enemy state -- are required to turn the impossible into possible,” G added.

G revealed that Mossad agents acted “with courage and determination under fire in central Beirut to deliver precise intelligence for the operation.”

Nasrallah was killed in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Hezbollah’s stronghold in the capital, on September 27 last year. The operation involved dropping more than 80 one-ton bombs on the bunker where he was located. According to the Israeli army, fighter jets, guided by precise intelligence from the Military Intelligence Directorate and the national security system, struck Hezbollah’s central command beneath a residential building in Dahieh while its leadership was coordinating anti-Israel activities.