As the war between Israel and Hamas heats up, Israel has prepared a series of methods intended to destroy the terrorist organization once and for all. In previous years, Hamas terrorists have carried out many attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians. These assaults have resulted in casualties that have devastated families and communities.
Yet, the group’s October 7 attack was the fiercest of all, claiming over 1,000 Israeli lives. This assault showed a level of sophistication and planning that had not been seen from the organization since its inception, leading to suspicions that other foreign powers like Iran were involved in the planning and execution of the attack.
In response, Israel is poised to launch a massive ground incursion into the Gaza Strip to eradicate Hamas. I previously wrote about another plan of action Israel will take: The creation of an elite unit intended to hunt down and kill every Hamas leader involved in the surprise terror attack. This endeavor will not involve bombs and airstrikes but surgical assassination operations.
The Mossad and Shin Bet have reportedly formed a special operations center tasked with tracking down and killing members of the Hamas commando unit that led the Gaza-ruling terror group’s deadly onslaught in southern Israel on October 7.
According to the Ynet news site, the unit will be named after the World War I-era Jewish underground organization “Nili,” an acronym for a Hebrew phrase which translates as “the Eternal One of Israel will not lie.”
The report said the command center’s goal will be to take out all the Nukbha gunmen who were involved in the surprise assault two weeks ago, when some 2,500 terrorists burst into Israel by land, sea, and air under a massive rocket barrage, killing around 1,400 people, the vast majority of them civilians. Terrorists also took at least 210 hostages of all ages into Gaza and are holding them captive.
This move is reminiscent of another chapter in Israel’s history when it used these methods to eliminate terrorists responsible for killing Israeli hostages in the Munich Olympics Massacre of 1972. The initiative, known as "Operation: Wrath of God," saw Israeli operatives seeking out those responsible for the attack and eliminating them. The operation was carried out over the span of several years and ended in the 1980s. It has been seen as a controversial move on the Jewish state’s part, but many argue that it was necessary.
The Munich Olympics Massacre was a watershed moment in Israel’s history. Black September, a Palestinian extremist group, seized 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team. They later killed them when German authorities made a rescue attempt. Wrath of God was carried out by the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, under the leadership of Prime Minister Golda Meir and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan:
Although Israel had historically targeted the leaders of organizations such as Fatah, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the frequency of such assassinations by Israel escalated dramatically in the wake of the massacre in Munich. A secret Israeli committee chaired by Prime Minister Golda Meir and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan is said to have authorized the assassination of everyone directly or indirectly involved with Black September, the Fatah-affiliated group that had orchestrated the Munich killings.
While the move was met with international controversy, Israel’s government argued that it had to carry out the operation as a matter of self-defense and retribution for the Munich tragedy.
The hit squad first killed Wael Zwaiter, a PLO organizer and cousin of Yāsir ʿArafāt, shooting him in the lobby of his Rome apartment building in October 1972. Mahmoud Hamshari, the PLO representative in Paris, was targeted next. After a Wrath of God member, posing as an Italian journalist, scheduled a telephone interview with Hamshari in December 1972, Wrath of God explosives experts broke into his home and planted a bomb in his telephone. Hamshari was called at the time arranged for the interview, and, when he identified himself, the bomb was activated remotely. He died in the explosion.
Four other suspects—Basil al-Kubaisi, Hussein Abad al-Chir, Zaid Muchassi, and Mohammed Boudia—were all killed during the next few months. The most spectacular mission in the Wrath of God campaign took place in April 1973. Ehud Barak, the leader of the IDF’s elite Sayeret Matcal unit, developed an audacious plan to strike at PLO leadership. Dubbed Operation Spring of Youth, the mission involved the amphibious insertion of commando teams into Beirut. Once ashore, they coordinated their efforts with Mossad agents already in the city and deflected attention by donning civilian clothing. While other commando teams staged diversionary raids throughout the city and a squad of Israeli paratroopers assaulted the PFLP headquarters, the main force targeted Muhammad Youssef Al-Najjar, Kamal Adwan, and Kamal Nasser, killing all three.
In a tragic occurrence, the hit squad killed an innocent man in Lillehammer, Norway. Believing they had located Ali Hassan Salameh, a key figure in the massacre, the Mossad mistakenly targeted an individual named Ahmed Bouchiki, a Moroccan waiter. They shot him outside of his apartment.
So far, the precise number of terrorists eliminated by the Mossad has never been revealed as the operation maintained a high level of secrecy in carrying out the assassinations.
The operation has left a lasting legacy, not just in the history of covert operations but also in debates over the moral and legal boundaries of counterterrorism operations. It is a stark reminder of the complexities and nuances surrounding these types of efforts.
Now, in 2023, Israel is prepared to make a similar move, which will almost certainly become controversial in its own right. However, in its quest to destroy Hamas, it might be a necessary move and could send a message to future terrorist groups as to what could happen if they were to follow in Hamas’ footsteps.
