Israel’s intelligence services are planning a worldwide assassination campaign to hunt down and kill Hamas leaders after the nation’s war in the Gaza Strip is over, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Israeli officials who spoke with the outlet said Israel’s top spy agencies have been ordered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to develop plans to hunt down Hamas leaders living in Lebanon, Turkey, and Qatar.
Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, has for years received a degree of protection from Iran, Russia, Turkey, Qatar, and Lebanon, while Israel has refrained from targeting the Palestinian militants at times to avoid triggering diplomatic crises.
In a nationwide address on Nov. 22, Netanyahu broadcast his intentions, to the bewilderment of some Israeli officials who would prefer the latest plans remain clandestine.
“I have instructed the Mossad to act against the heads of Hamas wherever they are,” Netanyahu said, referring to Israel’s foreign-intelligence service.
During the same address, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Hamas leaders are living on “borrowed time.”
“They are marked for death,” he said. “The struggle is worldwide, both the terrorists in Gaza and those who fly in expensive planes.”
While Israel generally tries to keep assassination efforts secret, the nation’s leaders have shown little reserve in making it known that they intend to hunt down and kill everyone responsible for the Oct. 7 attack, just like they did in the aftermath of the Palestinian terror attack at the Munich Olympics in 1972. Eleven Israeli athletes and coaches were killed in that attack.
In theory, targeted killings abroad can run afoul of international law and cause friction with nations in which assassins operate without the state’s permission. In practice, however, Israel and other countries have engaged in targeted killings and simply dealt with the fallout.
The Jewish state’s plans to take out Hamas leaders began to form after the Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian militant group, during which more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were reportedly killed. More than 240 others of various nationalities were taken hostage.
The officials told the Journal that Israel is not known to have pursued assassinations in Qatar, and carrying out targeted-killing operations in the Gulf nation could have scuttled ongoing efforts to negotiate the release of hostages. It was for this reason that the assassination campaign was not immediately launched, they said.
Israel adopted clandestine assassinations as a government policy tool following the deadly Palestinian militant attack on the Israeli delegation at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
A group of Israeli athletes and coaches were taken hostage in the Olympic Village by Palestinian terrorists with a group called Black September. After a two-day standoff and a failed rescue attempt by West German police, all 11 Israeli hostages were killed.
In response, then-Prime Minister Golda Meir ordered Israeli spies to hunt down and kill all Palestinian militants responsible for the attack, with the covert campaign named Operation Wrath of God. It later became the subject of an Oscar-nominated Steven Spielberg movie.
The operation took 20 years and Israeli assassins killed Palestinians in France, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, and Lebanon.