Israel's Ways of High-Tech Warfare
Israel has long been known for using creative methods to destroy its enemies. It has been accused of carrying out a high-tech attack on Hezbollah.
The unprecedented mass explosion of pagers used by Hezbollah fighters came after the militant group switched from mobile phones to more outdated means of communication to reduce the risk of being monitored by Israel, the Telegraph reported.
No one has claimed responsibility, but Lebanese, Hezbollah and Iranian officials have blamed Israel. Many experts say the blast bears the hallmarks of Israeli special forces such as the Mossad intelligence agency.
Founded in 1949, a year after the founding of the State of Israel, Mossad is believed to be involved in many Israeli assassinations. Over the past seven decades, many believe Mossad has relied on explosive books, remote-controlled machine guns, and even poisoned toothpaste to get to its targets, with mixed results.
In 2012, a documentary called Sealed Lips revealed that in the 1970s, Israel plotted to assassinate then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein with a book rigged with explosives. Saddam refused to open the book and gave it to one of his officials. As soon as the book was opened, it exploded, killing the official who opened it and leaving Saddam unharmed.
Then there is the mysterious case of poisoned toothpaste, believed to have been used to kill Wadie Haddad, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
According to The New York Times' Ronen Bergman's History of Israel's Secret Assassinations, a Mossad hit team entered Haddad's home in 1978 and switched his toothpaste for an identical tube containing a poison developed by Israeli scientists.
The poison is believed to have entered the mouth through the mucous membranes of the user’s mouth each time he brushed his teeth, forcing Haddad to be hospitalized in Iraq. The Palestinian commander was eventually treated in East Germany, where doctors discovered suspicious toothpaste in his toiletries bag. Haddad’s death was said to have been slow and painful.
Mossad is also suspected of deploying a remote-controlled machine gun to assassinate the head of Iran’s nuclear program Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020. The gun was broken into pieces and smuggled into Iran, then reassembled and placed in a waiting location to ambush Mr. Mohsen.
According to Sky News, in 2007, the US and Israeli intelligence agencies created the powerful computer worm Stuxnet that disabled a key part of Iran's nuclear program. Stuxnet was designed to destroy the centrifuges that Iran used to enrich uranium.