This is how Israel plans to hunt down Hamas terrorists worldwide

Israel plans to eliminate Hamas leaders around the world, and the country's long history of conducting such operations against terrorists demonstrates its ability to do so, foreign policy and defense experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation .

Israel supposedly murder Hamas leader Salih Al-Aruri in a drone strike targeting Lebanon on Tuesday, underscoring the country's vocal commitment to a global campaign of elimination against senior Hamas operatives and leaders. This operation is expected to be carried out partly by Israel's military and partly by the country's extensive intelligence services such as the Mossad, which have successfully carried out similar assassination plots in previous decades, seconds in the Wall Street Journal.

“The Mossad is a first-rate intelligence service very capable both in intelligence gathering and analysis and in conducting covert operations,” said Mick Mulroy, a former defense and paramilitary officer for the CIA, in the DCNF. “They have a very long memory and an equally long range.”

After the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) counteroffensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Israel will begin going after senior Hamas officials in more targeted operations across the Middle East, including Qatar, Russia, Turkey, Iran and Lebanon, the WSJ reported. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has assigned this task to the Mossad, more formally known as the Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks. seconds in the Jewish Virtual Library.

“I have instructed the Mossad to act against the leaders of Hamas wherever they are,” Netanyahu said in a speech in December, according to the WSJ. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in the same speech that Hamas leaders are living on “borrowed time” and are “marked for death”; Mossad chief David Barnea echoed those comments again on Wednesday. seconds in The Guardian.

The Mossad was founded in 1949 as Israel's primary intelligence agency for counterterrorism, psychological warfare and international stealth tasks, including assassination or rescue operations, according to the Jewish Virtual Library. Mossad's primary goal is to control threats from nations and groups throughout the Middle East that seek Israel's destruction.

Although Netanyahu has been openly vowel Regarding Israel and the Mossad's intention to kill Hamas leaders on a global scale, most of the targeted operations are carried out in secret and the country rarely acknowledges them publicly. For example, Israel has yet to publicly confirm that it was behind the killing of Al-Aruri on Tuesday.

“Israel never takes 'credit' for killing people or blowing things up,” Shoshana Bryen, a defense analyst and senior director at The Jewish Policy Center, told DCNF. “Yet every now and then you get evidence of Israel's capabilities.”

Bryen pointed to an example from 2009, when Mossad agents allegedly targeted and killed Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh with a poison injection in his Dubai hotel room; Israel never claimed responsibility, seconds at WIRED. In another example a year earlier, the Mossad, in cooperation with the CIA, assassinated Hezbollah's head of international operations, Imad Mughniyah, who was responsible for the terrorist attacks on the United States Embassy in Beirut and the Embassy of 'Israel in Argentina; Mughniyah was killed in Damascus when a bomb exploded in the spare tire of a car she was getting into. seconds in the Washington Post.

Mulroy noted that Mossad working in concert with the CIA would expand the scope and effectiveness of an assassination campaign against Hamas. “The CIA and Mossad have a very close relationship. Working together, there are few, if any, places that an October 7 terrorist could hide to avoid detection,” Mulroy told the DCNF.

Mulroy recalled one of the most notable alleged Mossad operations that took place after the 1972 Munich Olympic terror attacks, when Palestinian militants took 11 Israeli athletes and coaches hostage before executing them. seconds in the New York Times. In response, then-Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir assigned the Mossad the task of tracking down and killing those responsible, a process that took several years and involved countries such as Italy, France, Cyprus and Greece. seconds on NPR.

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The 1972 Munich Olympic attacks and the Mossad's subsequent response were portrayed in the 2005 film “Munich.”,” directed by Steven Spielberg.

Israel and the Mossad have come under scrutiny for operations that have sometimes gone wrong; in the case of the 1972 Munich attacks, Mossad agents mistakenly killed a waiter in Norway, mistaking him for a Palestinian militant, according to NPR. Israeli intelligence has also been criticized for being aware of Hamas' plans on October 7, but not acting in advance, believing the terrorist group was incapable of carrying out the attacks. seconds in the NYT.

In total, Israel has conducted more than 2,700 global assassination operations since the end of World War II, according to the WSJ. Israel and the Mossad have been hunting down and killing Hamas militants for decades, an effort that has only intensified in the wake of the October 7 attacks.

“Indeed, this is an area where when they are surrounded by quantity, Israel's intelligence and security services are proving that they have quality,” said Benham Ben Tableau, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of the Democracies, in the DCNF. “While the methods and trades will likely remain secret, Israel's ability to penetrate or surveil adversary terrorist networks in the region gives it a massive leg up.”

“If I were a Hamas terrorist, I would assume that they would find me, and I would assume that I would die that day, in Gaza or somewhere else,” Bryen told the DCNF.

The Israeli defense ministry did not immediately respond to DCNF's request for comment.

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