Mossad flexes its muscles after pulling off 'surprise attack on Hezbollah that show just how well-oiled Israel's battleplans are', ex-Israeli intelligence officer says, after decades of spies' daring exploits from hunting Nazis to Munich revenge killings

Mossad is flexing its muscles, ex-Israeli intelligence officers have claimed as they say a surprise attack on Hezbollah using exploding pagers and walkie-talkies shows just how 'well-oiled' the nations battleplans are.

At least 20 people have been killed and hundreds more injured in blasts across Lebanon today when communication devices, solar panels and fingerprint recognition gadgets detonated, wounding their owners.

It comes just a day after similar strikes on pagers left almost 3,000 wounded and a dozen dead - including civilians and children.

The attacks amount to the biggest security breach in Hezbollah's history, with the group and its backers Iran condemning Israel and labelling it 'mass murder'. 

This evening, Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant declared the start of a 'new phase' of war in the Middle East, though it did not making any official comment about the explosions. 

Now former Israeli intelligence official Avi Melamid has said the attacks across Lebanon represent a demonstration of Israel's 'well-oiled battleplans'.

He told MailOnline: 'In two waves- each a matter of minutes, Hezbollah lost thousands of its battle-ready militants in an impactful operation that seriously disrupted its command-and-control capabilities.

'The repetitive attack, essentially using Hezbollah's backup wireless communications system – the portable radios – against its fighters, creates further deterrence, illustrating that those behind the strike are not just able to pull off their operation in a single surprise attack, but also have other tools at their disposal and well-oiled battleplans.

'While Hezbollah still has the fallback wired system it created in 2008, the loss of wireless communications capabilities severely compromises its flexibility, connectivity, and manoeuvrability.'

A former deputy national security adviser in Israel has further lauded the 'operational brilliance' of the deadly explosions.

Professor Chuck Freilich said the act 'sows deep fear' and could 'deter' Hezbollah from escalation.

'What I think we have seen here is intelligence and operational brilliance,' he told Sky News. 'This is really unprecedented.'

'Apparently thousands of Hezbollah fighters have been hit here, with unfortunately a few civilian casualties. You can't get more targeted than this. 

'This may be enough of a dramatic hit for Hezbollah that will stop them from escalation. It certainly sows deep fear.'

And a further senior Israeli intelligence official added that the killer blasts  were a 'very successful tactical move' - although they claimed not to know if their former country was involved.

Dr Eyal Pinko said he believed it could be a 'warning shot' - a show of Israel's strength to get Hamas to agree to a ceasefire.

He told The World with Yalda Hakim: 'The way this operation was done - if it was by Israel or not - it's a way of saying or signalling 'let's stop here... we can penetrate you... and let's stop here.

'Israel doesn't want to go to any more war. Israel wants peace and quiet and to finish the war in the Gaza Strip.' 

The latest explosions this afternoon have hit the country's south and the capital Beirut, where dramatic time-lapse video shows multiple plumes of smoke rising above the skyline in different locations almost simultaneously. 

Mourners were among the injured after multiple explosions occurred at the site of a funeral for three Hezbollah members and a child who were killed by the exploding pagers yesterday, according to reports.

Beirut's hospitals are reportedly still at full capacity following yesterday's attacks, with medical aid being rapidly diverted to the already crippled country as it deals with the catastrophe.

The repeated clandestine attacks, which Israel has not officially taken responsibility for, have raised already spiking tensions in the region to fever pitch.

Israel has moved additional troops to its northern border and Lebanon's foreign minister has warned that the blasts are an omen of a widening war.

The scenes of terror across Lebanon and Syria were reportedly caused by Israel's shadowy intelligence agency Mossad, which collaborated with the IDF to plant explosives in the pagers. 

Mossad has a long history of elaborate stunts on foreign soil, first gaining infamy after successfully carrying out the daring 1960 capture of high-ranking Nazi Adolf Eichmann, one of the key architects of the Holocaust. 

After the agency was tipped off that Eichmann, who fled Germany in the last days of the Second World War, was hiding in Buenos Aires, Argentina, they sent out a top investigator to sniff around for clues. 

Following weeks of investigation, they located and identified the sick Nazi, who by then was living as 'Ricardo Klement', in Argentina's capital city as a labourer, a quiet and peaceful life that stood in stark contrast to the misery and suffering he wrought on millions. 

Israel's then-prime minister David Ben-Gurion, assessing that Argentina was unlikely to formally extradite Eichmann, decided to commission Mossad to kidnap him and bring him to Israel to stand trial for his crimes. 

On 11 May 1960, Eichmann was approached by Mossad agents as he arrived home from work by bus. They approached him, asking him if he had a moment, before putting him on the ground, sticking him in a car and concealing him with a blanket before moving him to a safehouse already prepped for his arrival. 

There, he was held for nine days as investigators worked to completely confirm his identity. 

He was then sedated, before being stuck on an El Al flight with a fake passport back to Israel, where he stood trial for his crimes. 

Though Eichmann is perhaps the most famous example of a Mossad target, the agency has had plenty of other high-profile, even deadlier, incidents. 

The most notable was in 2020, shortly after the US took out Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, when Mossad assassinated Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, chief of Iran's nuclear programme. 

Fakhrizadeh led Iran's uraniam enrichment programme, as well as the military's research and development wing. 

On November 27 2020, he was assassinated while driving on a rural road near Tehran. 

Though exact details of his death are up for debate, it is believed that he was killed by a remotely-operated machine gun on the back of a car that had pulled up next to his. 

He was reportedly hit 13 times from a distance of 150m, before the gun-carrying car blew up, according to an account corroborated by Ali Shamkhani of Iran's Supreme National Security Council.

Mossad, along with the IDF, have also been claimed to be involved in the explosions of electronic devices across Lebanon and Syria.

It is alleged that Mossad, working in collaboration with elements of Israel's Defence Forces (IDF), managed to infiltrate the supply chain and plant a small quantity of high explosives inside the communication devices before they were delivered to Lebanon some time this spring.

These rigged devices were subsequently distributed to thousands of unsuspecting members across the political, military, operational and medical branches of Hezbollah before they were eventually detonated on Tuesday afternoon.   

Officials in Jerusalem have so far declined to comment on the incident, but Hezbollah has placed the blame squarely on Israel and has vowed to punish it.

An American official speaking on condition of anonymity said Israel briefed the United States on Tuesday after the attack, but gave no more details.

Meanwhile, a slew of security sources, regional analysts and munitions experts concur that Mossad and the IDF are the only entities capable of pulling off such an operation.

For now, Hezbollah has been left deeply embarrassed by the security failure. Sky News reported tonight that 'thousands and thousands' of pagers are currently being destroyed by the proscribed terror group in the wake of the detonations.   

The head of the IDF, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, said Israel has drawn up plans to attack Hezbollah, telling the Times of Israel: 'We have many capabilities that we have not yet activated.

'We have seen some of these things, it seems to me that we are well prepared and we are preparing these plans going forward. At each stage, the price for Hezbollah needs to be high.'

Without directly mentioning the detonations, Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant praised the work of the IDF and Israel's security services, telling them 'the results are very impressive.'

'We are at the start of a new phase in the war - it requires courage, determination and perseverance', he said on a visit to the Ramat David airbase in northern Israel.

He added that, following months of war in the Gaza Strip, the 'centre of gravity is shifting to the north by diverting resources and forces.

Gallant later added that the aim of a potential escalation in tensions with Hezbollah was to 'return the residents of the settlement in the north to their homes safely.'

His comments were backed up by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in a short video shared to social media, said: 'I have said it before, we will return to the citizens of the north to their homes in security and that's exactly what we are going to do.'

Downing Street said tonight that the Lebanon detonations were 'deeply concerning', with a spokesperson adding that prime minister Kier Starmer and the government 'continued to monitor the situation closely.'

'We are working with our international partners to urge calm and de-escalation at this critical time.'

Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, meanwhile, called the attacks in Lebanon a 'heinous act of terrorism.'

She added: 'All the signs are there of an international terrorist attack because it is obvious that in order to gather such a large amount of equipment, it had to be brought in, crossing several borders. Obviously, there is an international trail in this, and it should be investigated accordingly.

'Now the reaction of the west should be indicative. If the west remains silent, and as always, does not insist on an investigation, does not talk about human rights, does not repeat its rhetoric of many years, which they have used in similar cases when terrorist acts were committed on their territory, then this will be proof of their direct engagement.'

The US, meanwhile, was forced to deny for the second time in two days any involvement in the detonations.

The White House's national security adviser John Kirby told reporters today: 'We were not involved in yesterday's incidents or today's in any way.

'We want to see the war end, and everything we've been doing since the beginning has been designed to prevent the conflict from escalating.'

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned this afternoon that the strikes could be a precursor to a large-scale confrontation between Israel and Lebanon.

'The logic of making all these devices explode is to do it as a pre-emptive strike before a major military operation,' he said.

'These events confirm that there is a serious risk of a dramatic escalation in Lebanon and everything must be done to avoid that escalation.'

He added that it was 'too soon to know' if the explosions would have a impact on the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.

'Sadly, we aren't any closer to that now than we were even a week ago, so it's difficult to see any impact of these incidents, but I think it's just too soon to know', he said.

The UN's human rights chief, Volker Türk, meanwhile condemned the waves of explosions as a violation of international human rights law.

'Simultaneous targeting of thousands of individuals, whether civilians or members of armed groups, without knowledge as to who was in possession of the targeted devices, their location and their surroundings at the time of the attack, violates international human rights law and, to the extent applicable, international humanitarian law,' Türk said in a statement on Wednesday.