In the particularly careful and sophisticated preparations that preceded the IDF’s attack on Hezbollah, Israeli services have targeted Hezbollah’s formidable financial reserves for at least ten years. At least a billion dollars, buried in the cellars of the movement’s headquarters, went up in smoke during the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah on September 27, while Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, was giving his speech to the Assembly. General of the UN.
Hezbollah, which was created by the most deprived Shiites in the 1980s, has acquired, forty years later, decisive influence on the eve of the Lebanese presidential election which is to take place this fall. Indeed the winner of this election, coming from the Christian community due to a tradition firmly established since the end of the French mandate in 1943, must go through a form of compromise with the Shiite force which has since become a populist party with practices very undemocratic in the shadow of its Iranian protector.
If Hezbollah has established itself within the Lebanese state in a few decades, it is because of its undeniable talent for adopting the most corrupt and clannish codes of the Lebanese political class. But the Shiite movement owes its breakthrough above all to the acquisition of considerable hidden funds which enabled it to finance a formidable capacity to integrate itself into the heart of Lebanese society in around twenty years.
However, reliable sources tell us, it is precisely this war treasure that went up in smoke on September 27, when Israeli air strikes assassinated Hassan Nasrallah and destroyed no less than six buildings.
Money, the nerve of war
In the attics of these buildings, a cash war chest of at least a billion dollars, we are told, had been hidden by the leader of Hezbollah and his relatives. So part of the funds patiently collected, via drug trafficking or thanks to the hundreds of millions poured in by Iran, went up in smoke! Our sources tell us that other caches housing Hezbollah’s war chest located in the Bekaa under control were also destroyed by the Israeli air force.
For at least ten years, the Israelis had been tracking down these tunnels or cellars where the movement’s funds were carefully preserved. This is how at the beginning of 2010-2012, the Israelis managed to kidnap one of Hassan Nasrallah’s closest advisors in charge of finances. Embarked by car in Israel, the latter had revealed some precious financial secrets of the Shiite movement.
In recent days, a Lebanese site in Arabic has retraced the journey of one of these “informants” in the pay of Mossad, a certain Hassan Bâcha, who also allegedly betrayed his camp by leaving Lebanon with four or five million dollars. and some manufacturing secrets of Hezbollah (1).
Israeli services at the forefront
An undoubtedly simplistic vision sometimes pits an Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who would be a frenzied warmonger against his Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, who is much more measured and diplomatic. However, we know today that Benjamin Nathanyahu, when he was preparing to go to the UN to deliver a speech to the General Assembly on September 27, had not planned the double attack against Hezbollah. In his mind, the diplomatic phase had to precede the war offensive.
However, this was not the case, the offensive against Lebanon was decided urgently after a pressing intervention by the Israeli military and services with Benjamin Netanyahu. “The unplanned explosion of four pagers alerted the leaders of Hezbollah who suspected something.”And to conclude: “Either you intervene, or you fail.”
A decisive handshake
One of the most intriguing theories circulating around this assassination, explains the Lebanese site “ICI Beirut), comes from the Saudi channel Al-Hadath and the Israeli newspaper Maariv. According to these media, the operation began well before the Israeli bombing, during a meeting between Nasrallah and an individual from Iran. This man allegedly shook the Hezbollah leader’s hand, applying a substance invisible to the naked eye to his palm, allowing Israel to track his movements with precision.
This device, the existence of which has not been officially confirmed, would have allowed Israeli intelligence services to locate Hassan Nasrallah in real time. According to this theory, once the Hezbollah leader arrived at his headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Israel needed only two minutes to confirm his presence.
That’s when Israeli planes launched airstrikes on Hezbollah’s headquarters and dropped around 80 tons of bombs on the site.
According to MaarivHassan Nasrallah died of asphyxiation after hiding in an unventilated room in the headquarters, where toxic gases from the bombing had infiltrated. “ The handshake theory highlights a surprising fact, conclude our colleagues from Ici Beirut. Israel would have the means to pierce the thickest walls, literally and figuratively.”
Spectacular technological advances
Israel’s ability to locate and eliminate Hezbollah’s leader stems from an intelligence strategy that has been intensified for years. As reported by media such as Financial Timesthe Jewish state has invested in cutting-edge technologies to monitor Hezbollah and its members on an ongoing basis.Technological advances in drones, spy satellites and cyber surveillance have allowed Israel to accumulate massive data on Hezbollah and map the movements of its senior officials.
Reports indicate that Israel has considerably broadened its understanding of Hezbollah, studying not only its military aspect but also its considerable financing, which will have been one of the keys to its popular successes in Lebanon by allowing it to compensate for the absence of the Lebanese state and to maintain a loyal political clientele with medicines and other essential goods.
(1) Mondafrique was unable to confirm this information
