Last year, an Israeli telecom executive working in Europe received a call from an old friend in Tel Aviv: could he help design a phone that looked like a cheap Android but could transmit encrypted data that mimicked social media traffic?
Around the same time, a reservist working for an Israeli healthcare startup got a call from Unit 9900, a small unit of the Israeli military that searches for clues in vast data sets. Could he refine the algorithm he had worked on while in the military so that a dedicated server could search satellite images of fuel tankers and separate those carrying gasoline from those carrying rocket propellant?
None of them were told exactly how their efforts contributed to Israel’s first airstrike on Iran last week, which stunned the country with both depth and precision. More than a dozen security chiefs and nuclear scientists were killed almost simultaneously; entire air defense systems were destroyed before they could fire a single missile; and a large number of missile launch sites were identified and destroyed.
How Israeli security services successfully executed parallel operations that combined the work of the Aman military intelligence service and the Mossad foreign intelligence agency into such an effective attack may never be fully known to the public. However, the first hints are beginning to emerge, some through authorized leaks aimed at embarrassing Iran, others from people familiar with the operations who spoke to the Financial Times on condition of anonymity.
They describe a years-long operation that relied on every possible resource Israeli intelligence could tap into - commercial satellites, hacked phones, deep-infiltrated agents recruited locally, secret warehouses for assembling drones, and even miniature weapon systems built into ordinary vehicles.
The goal, according to the interlocutors, was to create a dense base of targets that would be eliminated in the first hours of the military operation. One of them called it the Israeli version of a “violent and disabling strike”; another said the goal was to embrace “arrogance.”
One former Israeli official described the project as the result of “millions of dollars and years of effort” invested in confronting what Israel sees as an existential threat. “When you work on it for years, putting everything you have — human intelligence, open sources, money — you end up with this outcome,” he said.
Israel's success against Hezbollah, in a similar campaign last year, and now in the early stages of a full-scale conflict with Iran, stands in stark contrast to its failure to predict or prevent the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.
In advance of the attack, Aman's military intelligence service identified so-called "centers of gravity" to focus attention on, such as firepower hubs and nuclear programs. Thousands of intelligence sources were cross-checked, and by March of this year, the target database began to fill up.
The way these targets may have been tracked is best illustrated by the fact that a technical team in the military was consulted last October about how they were tracking Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, who was killed by Israel in September last year. Their sophisticated, almost automated system was able to pinpoint his location with near certainty once every 24 hours.
Israel's attack on Iran has not yet achieved its grand strategic goal - destroying the Islamic Republic's nuclear and ballistic missile programs - nor has it achieved its goal of weakening the regime to the point of its collapse. However, the first hours of last week's attack clearly demonstrated how ambitious and comprehensive the list of targets that Israeli intelligence services are constantly updating is.
The initial strikes of the campaign targeted at least four types of targets within minutes: senior military officials in the chain of command; air defense systems around strategic locations; parts of two major nuclear facilities; and missile launch sites in western Iran that were identified as imminent threats of retaliation. In this way, Israel was able to exploit the element of surprise.
“The initial, opening strike was just the beginning of the campaign. We’re not done,” said Miri Ajzin, a former senior intelligence officer. “Targeting 15 different people at the same time — that’s not easy — and once you’ve eliminated the decision-maker, you delay their reaction and buy valuable time.”
Israel's success has caused some panic within Iran's security apparatus, which has been repeatedly embarrassed by the actions of the Mossad in the past. The spy agency's headquarters, on the northern outskirts of Tel Aviv, has been the target of Iranian ballistic missiles on several occasions.
A former senior commander in Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards urged citizens this week to check their rooftops for possible micro drones, claiming that Iranian opposition groups are paid to smuggle them into major cities. Police Chief Ahmad Reza Radan called on Israeli spies to turn themselves in so they could be given "Islamic mercy."
The Fars news agency, close to the Revolutionary Guard, has issued warnings that mobile phones are being used not only for surveillance but also for assassinations. “The most important decision must be this: all mobile phones in the possession of commanders, senior officials, nuclear scientists - and even their family members - must be taken away,” said hardline MP Hamid Rasaei.
But such measures are unlikely to make a difference at this point, said people familiar with Israeli operations inside Iran. The telecom executive declined to say whether his software was ultimately used in Iran, but he boasted that it was being used simultaneously by hundreds of people around the world.
Israel is now hunting down the remnants of Iran's air defenses and almost completely dominates the airspace. It lost a Hermes 900 reconnaissance drone to an Iranian missile, but is not known to have suffered any other loss of military equipment. Its air force has complete freedom to strike any target in Iranian territory.
Compared to Israel, Iranian intelligence operations inside Israel pale in comparison. Several Israeli citizens have been arrested and prosecuted for gathering information for Iran, while Iranian hackers appear to have managed to hack the mobile phone of a family member of Mossad chief David Barnea in recent years, and Iran has publicly claimed credit for the hack.
Its counterintelligence teams have arrested several individuals and accused them of working for Israel, and recently executed one. However, no Israeli citizens are known to have been captured, suggesting the possibility of widespread recruitment of local collaborators, either unknowingly or for money, or people opposed to the regime in Tehran.
In contrast, the Mossad has repeatedly carried out daring assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, including one in 2020 that is believed to have been carried out using a remote-controlled machine gun mounted on a truck that then self-destructed.
The Mossad also managed to extract thousands of documents from Iran's nuclear archive that Benjamin Netanyahu showed live on television, and assassinated a senior Hamas leader at the state residence in Iran last year, during his visit to mark the inauguration of President Massoud Pezeshkian.
Further adding to its halo of secrecy, the Mossad has released for the first time in its history footage it claims shows commandos operating inside Iran while launching combat drones and guided missiles that destroyed Iranian air defenses and missiles.
"From an intelligence standpoint, the entire campaign is an unprecedented feat, one of the most impressive achievements we've seen in modern warfare. Complete domination and penetration of the enemy system, on a scale we can't remember," said a former US military official.
"I cannot remember a conflict in which one side had such thorough knowledge of the enemy's plans and the movements of its leadership."
Israel's success against Hezbollah, in a similar campaign last year, and now in the early stages of a full-scale conflict with Iran, stands in stark contrast to its failure to predict or prevent the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.
His latest achievements have shown what Israeli intelligence and military units can do when they are clearly focused and have sufficient resources, Miri Aizin said.
"The Islamic regime in Iran is a top priority for Netanyahu and the entire security community. You are putting all the resources of your security and intelligence structures into getting that information, and then acting on it." But she added: "It makes me worry about the hubris that can accompany such success."
Translation: NB
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