TEHRAN- The Lebanese-based news channel Al-Mayadeen has quoted European security sources as saying Hezbollah’s retaliatory operation on the Israeli Glilot and Ein Shemer bases was “highly successful”.

Glilot is the headquarters of the Israeli military’s intelligence and surveillance agency, Unit 8200. 

Ein Shemer is an Israeli Air Force base. 

According to Al-Mayadeen’s European security sources, the attacks resulted in 22 fatalities among the Israeli intelligence unit 8200. 74 others also sustained injuries.

Glilot and Ein Shemer were the main targets of Hezbollah’s complex rocket and drone strikes dubbed “Operation Arbaeen”, in response to the Israeli assassination of the Hezbollah resistance movement’s senior commander Fouad Shokor in Beirut on July 30.

Hezbollah’s staged its retaliatory operation on August 25 and deemed the two bases responsible for orchestrating the Shokor assassination

On the same day, the movement’s Secretary-General, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, delivered a speech explaining that 340 rockets were fired to confuse and deplete the Iron Dome and other Israeli interceptor systems in the first phase of the operation. 

A second phase swiftly followed with the launch of many different types of drones to strike their targets including The Glilot base located 110 kilometers from the Lebanese border and 1,500 meters from Tel Aviv. 

The Ein Shemer airbase, 40 kilometers from Tel Aviv, was also struck, according to the Hezbollah secretary general. 

Nasrallah debunked Israeli “lies” about the operation, saying, “A significant number of drones hit their intended targets, but the enemy is keeping all relevant details concealed, but the days and nights will reveal the truth of what happened there”.

Experts have described the timing of the Israeli military’s Unit 8200 commander as highly suspicious, adding further evidence to Hezbollah’s success in targeting Glilot.

Yossi Sariel announced his resignation on Thursday, in a letter to staff, which he attributed to the failures of his intelligence unit based in Glilot for the October 7 attack. 

“The responsibility for 8200’s part in the intelligence and operational failure falls squarely on me,” Sariel stated. 

Analysts say news of Sariel’s intention to resign emerged in Israeli media on Tuesday and he has not been seen in public since, which has led some to believe he may have died in the Hezbollah attack on Glilot. 

Other experts have said it is unusual for the person in charge of the Israeli Unit 8200 to accept responsibility for intelligence failures on October 7, more than 11 months after the attacks. 

Other top Israeli military generals had resigned from their posts much earlier, which has led experts and analysts in the region to believe that Sariel is actually resigning for his intelligence unit’s failures in Hezbollah’s “Operation Arbaeen”.