Preemptive Israeli Assassinations: Hamas Leaders Still At Risk

The collected intelligence act like the eye and ear of the military and political leadership in vital decision-making, including strategic and tactical decisions, especially in military fields. This issue has been used by the Israelis more than any other time in the ongoing war between Tel Aviv and Hamas in Gaza. 

Espionage is one of the fixed beliefs in Jewish thought and in general the Zionist mind, which uses it to wrest its demands and achieve its occupation goals.

Along with its war on Gaza and the West Bank and pressing ahead with settlement projects, the Israeli regime uses assassination tactics to eliminate Palestinian leaders, and one of the prerequisites of assassination operations in espionage and top secret data collection. 

In the recent assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Hamas Political Bureau, in Tehran information leak was an issue that raised one of the biggest questions about this operation.

Mossad penetrated deep into Khaled Meshaal's security team 

Having in mind that in recent days there have been many speculations about the election of Khaled Meshaal, a top Hamas official, as the new head of the movement’s Political Bureau, the concerns about the infiltration of spies of the Israeli intelligence services in the close circle of the resistance leaders have increased. After the meeting of Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan with Meshaal at Haniyeh's funeral ceremony in Doha, this issue is being raised more and more by the media and analysts.

In this regard, Turkish political analysts believe that due to the border proximity of Iran and Turkey and the similarity of their stances in support of the Palestinian cause, it is necessary to take sophisticated measures against possible Israeli attacks. 

Security experts in Ankara and Istanbul cited the events of the past few months as an example, saying that the Israeli intelligence officers penetrated the heart of Khalid Meshaal's security team in Istanbul. They also recruited some of Turkish hospital staff related of treatment of Gaza civilians as intelligence mercenaries. So, the authorities in Turkey should be vigilant against possible attacks. 

Newspapers close to the Turkish government published detailed information about Mossad operatives, which shows that this spying agency, using mercenaries of Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian nationality, sought to obtain information and attack Palestinian fighters. 

Due to friendly relations with Turkey, Hamas leaders have visited this country repeatedly, so Mossad spies are more active in Turkey and so far dozens of these people have been arrested by the security forces. The identified mobile phone lines are the numbers that Mossad used to communicate with them and made the necessary arrangements through Telegram and WhatsApp. 

According to some claims about the published details of the assassination of Haniyeh, his bodyguard used WhatsApp to communicate on the night of the assassination, and this communication allowed the Israelis to discover Haniyeh's residence using GPS system. 

Currently, many messaging services and social networks are under the control of Western and Israeli spy agencies, which collect users' personal information and use it against them if necessary. Therefore, the resistance leaders who are on the Mossad's hit list should be more careful with use of these apps to leave no tracks behind. 

In the time of war, any information, no matter how small, can be heavily utilized to help eliminate the personnel, military bases, and other sources of the enemy. 

This is what the Israeli enemy and its intelligence agencies, especially the technology groups, are constantly working on to collect all the information available in the cyberspace and communications, especially in the geographical field of war, and the leaders of the resistance are more than others under the focus of these spy services. 

Meshaal was one of the first leaders of Hamas who was assassinated in 1997 but survived, and if he is elected as the head of Hamas for the second time, he will be placed in the spotlight of Israeli spy services more than ever before. 

There are many stories suggesting that Israeli regime obtained detailed information about the hideouts of the resistance commanders even by breaking into the mobile devices of people close to the friends and families of the resistance leaders. Therefore, the leaders of the resistance and their relatives will not be safe against the surveillance of the Israeli intelligence service after this, and it is necessary to observe all the security protocols at the highest level.

In order to stay out of reach of the enemy, Palestinian leaders should increase the level of security obsession in choosing their close circle and not use systems that can be easily tracked and eavesdropped. 

Using the successful experience of resistance in Gaza 

Although Israeli intelligence has infiltrated many communication services and systems, the resistance groups in Gaza have a successful record of counter-intelligence tricks and tactics. During the war, the military branch of the resistance has successfully defeated the Israelis in the intelligence war, and under the regime's round-the-clock monitoring eyes, they managed to hide the whereabouts of the Israeli prisoners and launch successful military operations.

The information that the commanders of the Gaza resistance have revealed about the methods used by the Israelis for espionage in Gaza show that Tel Aviv has resorted to the world's latest technologies in order to facilitate the communication with its mercenaries. A new technique that covers the mercenary while using the device so that if the device falls into the hands of the resistance forces, the device does not record any signs or evidence of previous contact with the Shabak. 

As Hamas-affiliated sources said, the new Israeli technique sports a chip similar to a mobile phone chip that is used once in a mobile device and is destroyed after programming on the device and this system is activated and ready to receive officers' communications, without a chip inside it. This new technique is so great that if the mobile phone falls into the hands of someone other than a spy, it causes no doubts. 

Despite the use of this level of technology, the discovery of Israel's espionage methods in Gaza represents a great victory for the resistance and shows that Hamas has developed its counter-espionage step by step with the advanced techniques of the invaders and has the ability to neutralize them.

The preemptive measures by Tel Aviv 

One of the reasons that makes the assassination of senior leaders of the resistance likely in the coming days is the fear and worry of the Israeli leaders about the way Iran reacts to Haniyeh's assassination on its soil. After the assassination of Haniyeh, the leaders of Tel Aviv have come to the certainty that Iran and Hezbollah will carry out large-scale operations in the coming days, and for this reason, it is possible that Netanyahu will take the initiative and start another adventure, and in implementing this scenario, he has the support of the majority in the occupied territories.

In a poll recently conducted by the Channel 14, 64 percent of Israelis said that the army should take preemptive measures against Iran and resistance groups to minimize the amount of threats against citizens' security.

Therefore, it is not far from the expectation that Netanyahu will take a suicidal move again and assassinate some resistance commanders in Lebanon or Palestinian leaders abroad, and Meshaal can be one of these options.

Therefore, Meshaal and his security team must be careful of the enemy's movements in order not to be surprised, because the hardline government of Netanyahu, which has been defeated in Gaza and has been targeted by resistance attacks from all fronts, has recently focused on assassinating resistance leaders in order to tout them as gains to home public. 

Israeli hardliners think that after eliminating its leaders, Hamas will be undermined and they can easily occupy Gaza. But experience has shown that when a leader is assassinated, another takes his place and powerfully continues the anti-Israeli struggle. 

Assassination of commanders and leaders not only does not weaken the resistance, but also adds to its popularity. Still, this resistance needs great minds and a more organized and precise framework to guide them in a way that secures the continuation of the resistance and turns it into a guiding path for the lives of Palestinians so that they can win in the combined battle the enemy is waging against them.