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Nasrallah’s Killing Reveals Depth of Israel’s Penetration of Hezbollah
A man walks on the rubble of damaged buildings in the aftermath of Israeli air strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, Lebanon September 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ali Alloush
In the wake of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s killing, Hezbollah faces the enormous challenge of plugging the infiltration in its ranks that allowed its arch enemy Israel to destroy weapons sites, booby-trap its communications and assassinate the veteran leader, whose whereabouts had been a closely guarded secret for years.
Nasrallah’s killing in a command HQ on Friday came barely a week after Israel’s deadly detonation of hundreds of booby-trapped pagers and radios. It was the culmination of a rapid succession of strikes that have eliminated half of Hezbollah’s leadership council and decimated its top military command.
In the days before and hours after Nasrallah’s killing, Reuters spoke to more than a dozen sources in Lebanon, Israel, Iran and Syria who provided details of the damage Israel has wrought on the powerful Shi’ite paramilitary group, including to its supply lines and command structure. All asked for anonymity to speak about sensitive matters.
One source familiar with Israeli thinking told Reuters, less than 24 hours before the strike, that Israel has spent 20 years focusing intelligence efforts on Hezbollah and could hit Nasrallah when it wanted, including in the headquarters.
The person called the intelligence “brilliant,” without providing details.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his close circle of ministers authorized the attack on Wednesday, two Israeli officials told Reuters. The attack took place while Netanyahu was in New York to speak at the U.N. General Assembly.
Nasrallah had avoided public appearances since a previous 2006 war. He had long been vigilant, his movements were restricted and the circle of people he saw was very small, according to a source familiar with Nasrallah’s security arrangements. The assassination suggested his group had been infiltrated by informants for Israel, the source said.
The Hezbollah leader had been even more cautious than usual since the Sept. 17 pager blasts, out of concern Israel would try to kill him, a security source familiar with the group’s thinking told Reuters a week ago, citing his absence from a commander’s funeral and his pre-recording of a speech broadcast a few days before.
Hezbollah’s media office did not respond to a request for comment for this story. U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday called Nasrallah’s killing “a measure of justice” for his many victims, and said the United States fully supported Israel’s right to defend itself against Iranian-backed groups.
Israel says it carried out the hit on Nasrallah by dropping bombs on the underground headquarters below a residential building in southern Beirut.
“This is a massive blow and intelligence failure for Hezbollah,” Magnus Ranstorp, a veteran Hezbollah expert at the Swedish Defence University. “They knew that he was meeting. He was meeting with other commanders. And they just went for him.”
Including Nasrallah, Israel’s military says it has killed eight of Hezbollah’s nine most senior military commanders this year, mostly in the past week. These commanders led units ranging from the rocket division to the elite Radwan force.
Around 1,500 Hezbollah fighters were maimed by the exploding pagers and walkie talkies on Sept. 17 and Sept. 18.
On Saturday, Israel’s military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told reporters in a briefing that the military had “real-time” knowledge that Nasrallah and other leaders were gathering. Shoshani did not say how they knew, but said the leaders were meeting to plan attacks on Israel.
Brigadier General Amichai Levin, commander of Israel’s Hatzerim Airbase, told reporters that dozens of munitions hit the target within seconds.
“The operation was complex and was planned for a long time,” according to Levin.
DEPLETED
Hezbollah has shown the ability to replace commanders quickly, and Nasrallah’s cousin Hashem Safieddine, also a cleric who wears the black turban denoting descent from Islam’s Prophet Mohammed, has long been tipped as his successor.
“You kill one, they get a new one,” said a European diplomat of the group’s approach.
The group, whose name means Party of God, will fight on: by U.S. and Israeli estimates it had some 40,000 fighters ahead of the current escalation, along with large weapons stockpiles and an extensive tunnel network near Israel’s border.
Founded in Tehran in 1982, the Shi’ite paramilitary outfit is the most formidable member of Iran’s so-called Axis of Resistance of anti-Israel allied irregular forces, and a significant regional player in its own right.
But it has been materially and psychologically weakened over the past 10 days.
Thanks to decades of backing from Iran, prior to the current conflict Hezbollah was among the world’s most well-armed non-conventional armies, with an arsenal of 150,000 rockets, missiles and drones, according to U.S. estimates.
That is ten times the size of the armory the group had in 2006, during its last war with Israel, according to Israeli estimates.
Over the past year, even more weapons have flowed into Lebanon from Iran, along with significant amounts of financial aid, a source familiar with Hezbollah’s thinking said.
There have been few detailed public assessments of how much this arsenal has been damaged by Israel’s offensive over the past week, which has hit Hezbollah strongholds in Bekaa Valley, far from Lebanon’s border with Israel.
One Western diplomat in the Middle East told Reuters prior to Friday’s attack that Hezbollah had lost 20%-25% of its missile capacity in the ongoing conflict, including in hundreds of Israeli strikes this week. The diplomat did not provide evidence or details of their assessment.
An Israeli security official said “a very respectable portion” of Hezbollah’s missile stocks had been destroyed, without giving further specifics.
In recent days, Israel has struck more than 1,000 Hezbollah targets. The security official, when asked about the military’s extensive target lists, said Israel had matched Hezbollah’s two-decade build up with preparations to prevent it launching its rockets in the first place – a complement to the Iron Dome air defence system that often downs missiles fired at the Jewish state.
Israeli officials say the fact that Hezbollah has only been able to launch a couple of hundred missiles a day in the past week was evidence its capabilities had been diminished.
IRAN CONNECTION
Before the strike on Nasrallah, three Iranian sources told Reuters Iran was planning to send additional missiles to Hezbollah to prepare for a prolonged war.
The weapons that were to be provided included short-to-medium-range ballistic missiles including Iranian Zelzals and an upgraded precision version known as the Fateh 110, the first Iranian source said.
Reuters was unable to reach the sources after the Nasrallah assassination.
While Iran is willing to provide military support, the two Iranian sources said it does not want to be directly involved in a confrontation between Hezbollah and Israel. The rapid escalation in hostilities over the past week follows a year of skirmishes tied to the Gaza war.
Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ deputy commander Abbas Nilforoushan was killed in the Israeli strikes on Beirut on Friday, Iranian media reported on Saturday, citing a state TV report.
Hezbollah may need certain warheads and missiles along with drones and missile parts to replenish those destroyed by Israeli strikes across Lebanon last week, a senior Syrian military intelligence source added.
Iranian supplies have in the past reached Hezbollah by air and sea. On Saturday, Lebanon’s transport ministry told an Iranian aircraft not to enter its airspace after Israel warned air traffic control at Beirut airport that it would use “force” if the plane landed, a source at the ministry told Reuters.
The source said it was not clear what was on the plane.
Land corridors are currently the best route for missiles, parts and drones, through Iraq and Syria, with the help of allied armed groups in those countries, an Iranian security official told Reuters this week.
The Syrian military source, however, said Israeli drone surveillance and strikes targeting convoys of trucks had compromised that route. This year, Israel stepped up attacks on weapons depots and supply routes in Syria to weaken Hezbollah ahead of any war, Reuters reported in June.
As recently as August, an Israeli drone hit weapons concealed in commercial trailers in Syria, the source said. This week, Israel’s military said its warplanes bombed unspecified infrastructure used to transfer weapons to Hezbollah at the Syria-Lebanon border.
Joseph Votel, a former army general who led U.S. forces in the Middle East, said Israel and its allies could well intercept any missiles Iran sent by land to Hezbollah now.
“That might be a risk they’re willing to take, frankly,” he said.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials

FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say

Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
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