00:00For the past two years, Israeli intelligence has stepped up its operations to clear the Oct. 7 front.
00:09What the Mossad has done bears the stamp of a top-quality intelligence service, perhaps the best intelligence service in the world.
00:18Brilliant moves against Hezbollah in Lebanon and against the Iranian regime.
00:22But behind these victories, new questions are emerging, particularly regarding the increasingly complicated relationship between the Mossad and the government.
00:39As we have seen more recently, there is the beginning of a real crisis. It is a fairly serious situation.
00:46Mossad, the secret story of a revenge, is the subject of our new feature film.
00:52Operation
00:53Al-Aqsa floods began with rockets launched from Gaza at the Jewish state, followed by a lightning-fast incursion into Israeli territory.
01:04Amas had a dual objective, to kill and take hostage as many people as possible.
01:24So, there has been a lot of talk about the Mossade's failure at the time of the attacks of Oct. 7.
01:30He is an intelligence specialist whose pseudonym is Ivanik Dinoel.
01:34He prefers to remain anonymous.
01:38In truth, the Mossad bears little responsibility in this story since surveillance of Hamas and Gaza
01:43is mainly the responsibility of the Shinbed, the Internal Intelligence Service,
01:47and Lehman, the Military Intelligence Service, which was also in charge of listening to everything that might happen in Gaza.
01:53So, the Mossad was only peripherally involved in relation to intelligence that could be gathered outside the area.
02:02And what is clear is that a certain number of alerts were sent to operational agents, particularly from Maine,
02:13regarding preparations for commando operations that were deemed implausible by the hierarchy, due to a frame of mind.
02:18On the one hand, they believed that Hamas was a somewhat crude organization that was not capable of a large-scale operation,
02:33and on the other hand, they believed it has had fallen asleep due to its business operations
02:37and that they were certainly not going to jeopardize their small business to attack Israel at that time.
02:41Double Mistake, Serious Mistake
02:47Three organizations were therefore tasked with monitoring Hamas activities.
02:51The Shinbed, Israeli Internal Intelligence, the Amman, the Military Secret Service, and the Mossad,
02:58which was primarily responsible for keeping an eye on Hamas leaders present abroad.
03:02In 2023, as you will see, it is important to remember that Israel is a country in political turmoil.
03:08In the first six months of the year, numerous demonstrations took place to protest against Benjamin Netanyahu
03:17and his controversial reform of the judicial system.
03:22The Prime Minister, who returned to power in December 2022, now works with a coalition of several parties.
03:30A government considered the most right-wing in Israel's history and which is very fragile politically
03:35because the ultra-Orthodox and nationalist parties are making Netanyahu pay dearly for their support.
03:42From there, if we go back to the tragedy of October 7th, there may have been failures in intelligence gathering,
03:49in the assessment of intelligence, in the transmission of intelligence to the political authorities
03:54and then finally in the decision to act or not to act on this intelligence.
03:57And it is difficult to clearly establish in Israel where the mistakes were made because two years after the attack,
04:04there has still been no commission of inquiry.
04:06In France, a researcher at Learsom has just published a report on the failure of Israeli intelligence.
04:13Its author, Clement Renaud, notes that the two fundamental assumptions,
04:18that Hamas was contained and incapable of orchestrating a large-scale attack,
04:22resonated perfectly with the worldview of the far-right coalition in power,
04:27for whom the main military threat was Esbola and the major political issue lay not in Gaza but in Jordan,
04:33which was considered a national territory to be reconquered politically and demographically.
04:39In other words, at the time, this intelligence ran counter to the ideology of certain far-right political parties
04:46that held the coalition together.
04:52As it had been in previous, less serious crises when Benjamin Netanyahu had been confronted with waves of attacks in Israel,
05:11his request was almost that of immediate and spectacular action on the part of the Mossad
05:18to reassure the Israelis and to clear the air a little of this attack that was not anticipated
05:23and to show the rest of the world and Israel's enemies that Israel remains capable of extremely significant retaliation.
05:32The time for operations is not the same as the time for politics.
05:40On the military level, the response was immediate.
05:43Israel imposed a complete blockade of the Gaza Strip and massively bombed the Palestinian enclave.
05:58And quite quickly, all eyes turned to Iran.
06:02The Islamic Republic supported Hamas in Gaza but also and especially Esbola in Lebanon.
06:17Two armed groups that advocated the destruction of Israel from the day after October 7.
06:22Moreover, Esbola launched requests for support for the Jewish state.
06:26Hamas and the Iranian regime, with proxies such as Esbola,
06:31have been in the sights of the Israeli intelligence services for several decades.
06:37When the countdown is triggered, it is indeed a question of activating the sources.
06:44This is once again an extremely important question of coordination within the agents recruited by the Mossad
06:50but also between the Mossad and the other elements that are called upon to strike.
06:54A veritable hive of activity that sets to work so that when the day comes,
07:01everyone, like a large symphony orchestra,
07:04can play their part exactly at the same time, to the nearest minute.
07:12It is in the years 2024 and 2025 that we will actually see the Mossad's response unfold.
07:18On September 17, 2024 in Lebanon, the pagers of thousands of Esbola members go off at around 3.30 p.m.
07:26The beepers, rudimentary communication tools used by Esbola precisely to avoid digital tracking of mobile phones,
07:45have proven to be the armed movement's Achilles heel.
07:47Because in the meantime, Israel has short-circuited the production cycle to add remotely detonated mini-explosives.
07:56If I had to use one word to describe the Mossad's beeper operation, it is sophistication.
08:02And what the Mossad did is the hallmark of a first-rate intelligence service,
08:07perhaps the best intelligence service in the world.
08:09Why?
08:12Because over the years, it was not a matter of simply introducing one or a few sources in Lebanon to Esbola.
08:22The Mossad controlled an entire supply chain,
08:25controlled dozens of intermediaries to trick Esbola into ordering beeper bombs and beers
08:30that they booby-trapped in Israel without anyone noticing.
08:33A sort of 3-2.0 war that left more than 30 dead and 3,000 injured and profoundly destabilized Esbola,
08:44whose leaders were decimated.
08:54A
08:54few days later, on September 28th, the leader of Esbola was killed in an Israeli strike.
09:24Another feat of arms for the Mossad.
09:33Between June 13 and 25,
09:362025,
09:37Israel launched a series of missile and aerial bombardments,
09:40jointly with the United States,
09:42intended to put a stop to the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions.
09:46In the Iran-Israel war of June 2025,
10:05the results were more mixed.
10:07On the one hand,
10:09it was an intelligence operation of unprecedented scale.
10:13There were not just fighter jet bombings,
10:15there were saboteurs present on Iranian territory on behalf of the Mossad who quickly,
10:21in one night,
10:22booby-trapped a number of key Iranian military aircraft.
10:39But the targets were not just infrastructure.
10:42More than a dozen leading scientists were killed in precision strikes.
10:47This demonstrates once again the impressive quality of the Mossad in terms of its observation and infiltration of the Iranian regime.
10:55What emerged in this case of the strikes against nuclear facilities is that there was a level of knowledge of where to strike and who to strike that was absolutely staggering.
11:07There was a procedure for Iranian security officials to meet in a bunker in the event of an attack on the country.
11:18This bunker was struck.
11:20The number of people who knew about it was not huge.
11:26So there must have been a betrayal, so to speak, at a fairly high level.
11:31Then, on the consequences of this war, yes, there is a debate.
11:35It is not certain that the Iranian nuclear program was truly destroyed.
11:39In that case, the strength and achievements of the Mossad would be diminished in this affair.
11:45Were the stocks of enriched uranium moved in time?
11:49Were the centrifuges really destroyed?
11:52Several questions remain today about the effectiveness of this operation.
11:56On Tuesday, September 9, 15, Israeli warplanes launched 10 missiles in broad daylight at a DOA site where Hamas leaders were due to meet.
12:12The Israeli army therefore announced that it had carried out an attack in Qatar against senior Hamas officials.
12:26It was a near failure, the six victims were not the high-ranking officers targeted by the army.
12:31The attack, however, sparked a huge diplomatic row.
12:35Qatari officials demanded an official apology or risked completely ceasing their diplomatic mediation work between Israel and Hamas.
12:49The Israeli intelligence services
12:52Eventually called his counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu to express his deep regrets.
13:01But the failure of this operation hides a completely different story.
13:05It is an extremely rare occurrence, but the Israeli secret services opposed the strikes decided by Benjamin Netanyahu.
13:13Here, we see it more recently, there is the beginning of a real crisis between a Mossad who suddenly said,
13:20No, we will not participate in a strike against Qatar because you are asking us to be the negotiators when the negotiations with Hamas,
13:28which were conducted in Qatar, were conducted by the Mossad.
13:35So, how do you expect us to have any credibility with the Qataris going forward when we were aware of a strike and helped to carry it out?
13:42It's simply impossible.
13:46So, they also did this to try to salvage what could be of their relationship with the Qataris and say,
13:51Listen, we had nothing to do with this.
13:52We didn't tell you in advance because that would have been disloyal.
13:55Quote,
13:56But quite frankly, we didn't want to participate in this because it was stupid.
13:59Well, it poses an unprecedented problem.
14:01Netanyahu fired the previous head of the Mossad to install someone loyal to him,
14:05and this same person, appointed by him, said,
14:09No, you're going too far, I can't participate in this.
14:13It's a pretty serious situation.
14:16More than two years after the tragedy of October 7th,
14:19the Mossad has somewhat restored its image.
14:22But you know, we always contrast tactical victories with strategic successes,
14:27that is, long-term successes.
14:29The Israeli intelligence services have shown that they are capable of striking hard and fast.
14:34But what long-term political vision do they follow?
14:38Given that the one adopted by Netanyahu is starting to cause them problems.
14:43Also considering that the intelligence collected by the agency
14:46sometimes contradicts the ideology of certain far-right parties
14:50that allow Netanyahu to remain prime minister.
14:53And it is to these challenges that the Mossad must now respond.
14:56If you enjoyed this video,
14:58let us know in the comments and don't forget to subscribe to the Express channel.
Commentaires
2