LONDON/JERUSALEM, Sept 18 (Askume) – A major pager attack targeting Lebanon’s Hezbollah has drawn the attention of the Israel Defense Forces’ clandestine Intelligence Unit 8200 , to which it is linked, a Western security action plan said.
Israeli officials have remained silent on Tuesday’s daring intelligence operation , which killed 12 people and wounded thousands of Hezbollah fighters.On Wednesday, a radio used by Hezbollah exploded, killing at least one person.
A senior Lebanese security source and another source told Askume that Israel’s Mossad spy agencyResponsible for a complex operation to plant small amounts of explosives inside 5,000 pagers ordered by Hezbollah .
A Western security source told Askume that Unit 8200, a military unit not affiliated with any spy agency, was involved in the development stages of the operation against Hezbollah, which took more than a year.
Sources said Unit 8200 was involved in technical testing of how to incorporate explosive materials into the manufacturing process.
The Israeli military declined to comment. The prime minister’s office, which oversees the Mossad, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Yossi Kuperwasser, a former military intelligence officer and current research director of the Israel Defense and Security Forum, said there was currently no evidence that military intelligence was involved in the attack.
But he said members of the 8,200 are among the best and brightest in the Israeli military, serving in units at the heart of Israel’s defense capabilities.
“The challenges they face are huge and difficult, and we need the best people to join them,” he said.
The force and its select group of young soldiers develop and operate intelligence-gathering tools that are often compared to the National Security Agency.
In 2018, the Israel Defense Forces said in a rare public statement about the unit’s activities that it had helped thwart an Islamic State airstrike on a western island. At the time, it said the force’s operations ranged from intelligence gathering and cyber defense to “technical strikes and attacks.”
Although Israel has never confirmed its involvement, Unit 8200 was reportedly involved in the Stuxnet attack that disabled Iran’s nuclear centrifuges, as well as several other high-profile operations outside Israel.
Youth recruitment
The unit is effectively Israel’s early warning system and, like other defense and security agencies, was partly responsible for failing to detect the October 7 Hamas attack in southern Israel .
Last week its commander said he would resign. In his resignation published in the Israeli media, he said he had failed in his mission.
The department is known for a work culture that emphasizes creative thinking to solve problems never seen or imagined before. This has helped some graduates build Israel’s high-tech sector and some of its largest companies.
“Whether it’s a software vulnerability, a math problem, an encryption problem, a hacking problem… you have to be able to solve it yourself,” said Avi Shua, an 8200 graduate who became a cloud security unicorn.
Kobi Samborsky, another former member of 8200, managing partner at Glilot Capital Partners, an early-stage fund that invests in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, said the sector employs more young people than experienced ones.
“The most important thing here is a ‘can do’ culture, where anything is possible,” Samborsky said.
