TEHRAN - Israel has a long record of plotting assassinations using phones to identify and locate its targets.

The regime has carried out targeted killings through its electronic warfare in the occupied Palestinian territories and beyond.  

Israel’s electronic warfare aircraft pinpoint devices exchanging data with low-orbit communication satellites and target them with air-to-ground missiles.

The recent comments by the secretary general of the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement have brought Israel’s use of such methods of assassinations to light. 

A few days ago, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned the Israeli intelligence is exploiting mobile phones to gather sensitive information as the regime presses ahead with its war in Gaza and attacks in southern Lebanon.

“I call on you to do away with your cell phones during this period because it is a deadly agent,” the Hezbollah chief said. 

Nasrallah also urged shops and residents in the south to turn off any surveillance cameras connected to the internet.

His recommendations are aimed at thwarting Israel’s assassination plots which not only target resistance leaders but also civilians. 

The Israeli military claims that cellphone data is a pivotal tool to gauge civilian presence and adjust military actions. 

The regime, however, justifies its deliberate deadly attacks on civilian targets under the pretext of hitting the positions of resistance forces.  

Targeted killings

Yahya Ayyash, a senior Hamas field commander, was one of the first victims of the Israeli military’s strategy of using cellphone data.

Ayyash was killed in Gaza City on January 5, 1996, when his cell phone exploded during his weekly phone call to his father in the West Bank. The Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, intercepted the call, confirmed his identity, and detonated the explosives remotely. 

Ayyash was widely known as “the engineer” for his bomb-making skills. 

In January 2024, a drone strike in the southern suburbs of Dahiyeh in the Lebanese capital Beirut also killed senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri.

According to Lebanese media, he was killed in an Israeli drone attack on Hamas' office alongside six others.

The office was furnished with at least one computer with a Wi-Fi connection, potentially giving Israeli forces a method of locating the men.

“Once the laptop started, the strike hit the office,” senior Lebanese officials said. 

The 57-year-old was the deputy head of the Hamas political bureau who helped establish the resistance group's military wing, the Qassam Brigades. 

Before Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had threatened to kill him.

Netanyahu also told a press conference in November last year that he had instructed the regime’s Mossad spy agency to “assassinate all the leaders of Hamas wherever they are”.

According to a December leaked recording, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar told the Knesset that Hamas leaders would be killed “in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Lebanon, in Turkey, in Qatar, everywhere”.

Undoubtedly, Israel’s plans to carry out assassinations on the soil of other countries amount to violating their sovereignty and territorial integrity. 

Israel’s vulnerability 

The Israeli intelligence services had cloaked themselves in an aura of invincibility for decades. But, the deadly military operation that was conducted by Hamas more than four months ago shattered the regime’s image of invincibility. 
On October 7, Hamas conducted Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in southern Israel, killing 1,139 and capturing 240 others. 

Israel enjoys advanced electronic systems and tracks the location data of the cellphones of Palestinians in Gaza, but failed to deter the Hamas attack. 

To keep Israel’s intelligence system in the dark and conduct a successful operation, the Hamas resistance movement installed “Israel-proof” communications infrastructure in its tunnel network under the Gaza Strip. 

Hamas laid tens of kilometers of cables with strong electromagnetic shielding to prevent the detection and interception of signals.

In fact, the cables minimized the emission of electromagnetic radiation and the great depth of the tunnels prevented detection and signal interception. 

The Hamas operation dealt a devastating blow to the Netanyahu regime, which has been committing genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza for more than four months.