Most Israelis believe that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah rarely emerged above ground before he was killed, but Col. (res.) S., head of the IDF's "Nahalat Binyamin," revealed that this was a misconception in a rare interview with Maariv.
From the end of the Second Lebanon War in August 2006 until Operation New Order, during which Nasrallah was killed on Friday, September 27, 2024, most Israelis believed that the Hezbollah leader was hiding in a bunker deep underground. Israelis were told for years that Nasrallah rarely emerged, and that even his public speeches were pre-recorded and broadcast to supporters.
Col. S. said that was not actually the case and revealed new details about the dramatic assassination.
Col. S. commands "Nahalat Binyamin," the codename for the Israeli Air Force unit that plans and builds all of the Air Force's strike operations across the Middle East and, when necessary, anywhere around the globe. It is effectively the famous "target bank" that the IDF prepares for every conflict arena.
"In the Nasrallah operation, we dropped 83 bombs. By the way, we dropped the same number on his successor, Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, two weeks later," Col. S. said.
"We tracked Nasrallah for a very long time. We knew his apartments, his wife's home, his emergency locations, and the places where he hid. But the truth is that most of the time, he was not hiding in a bunker. There were periods when Nasrallah lived in a penthouse on the eighth floor of a residential building in Dahiyeh. When he needed to hide, he used a special elevator installed for him.
"He may have lived in a bunker ideologically, but in practice, he was not underground all the time. Operationally, it didn't really matter to us. Any bunker he entered, we could have killed him. We had relevant strike plans for every structure and every bunker."
Nasrallah preferred specific bunker on day he was killed
Regarding the operation that killed Nasrallah, the officer said that "the Hezbollah leader had better protected locations he could have gone to that day, but he preferred to go to the specific bunker where we eliminated him."
He described the site as a shelter deep underground beneath a multi-story residential building.
"The strike itself lasted a few seconds. The aircraft launched missiles intended to trap the occupants inside the bunker with no ability to escape."
Before the attack, he said, he consulted the commander of the Home Front Command's rescue unit.
"I asked how long it would take his people to reach a disaster site like Nasrallah's bunker. He told me they could rescue trapped people within six hours. I realized that in Lebanon, they were less organized, and that I needed to prevent anyone from approaching the site for 12 hours and attempting to rescue survivors. We wanted to make sure Nasrallah died, if not from the direct strike then from blood loss or suffocation due to lack of oxygen."
According to Col. S., not only was the bunker struck that night, but the entire residential building above it was also destroyed.
"After the strike, we saw a motorcycle arrive, and people tried to enter through a nearby shaft," he said. "Immediately afterward, they brought a bulldozer to rescue people from the rubble. We struck the bulldozer. Later, a second bulldozer arrived, and we struck and destroyed it as well. The third bulldozer never came."
Other Hezbollah figures assassinated by IAF
Nasrallah was not the first senior Hezbollah figure on the assassination list. Before him came Hezbollah chief of staff Fuad Shukr, known as "Sayyed Mohsen," who was killed at his mistress's apartment in Beirut in July 2024.
"Based on the images we received, his mistress didn't look bad," Lt.-Col. S. said. "He had a long-term affair with her. We knew when he visited and how long he stayed. The affair lasted several years, and we always knew about it. He was a central figure in Hezbollah, and we knew his elimination would be a dramatic blow to the organization. We decided to strike the apartment when he arrived there. The attack was precise and powerful, and they were killed by the impact."
According to the officer, a more difficult operation was the killing of Ibrahim Aqil, Hezbollah's operations chief and commander of the Radwan Force, on September 20, 2024. Although the target was killed, the collateral damage was extensive, and a building collapsed due to the force of the strike.
"When we were asked a day later to eliminate Ali Karaki, Hezbollah's southern front commander, we were instructed to reduce the size of the munitions to prevent collateral damage," Col. S. revealed.
"We struck the apartment where he was hiding in Dahiyeh. Unfortunately, he was only wounded, and Hezbollah immediately evacuated him to Nasrallah's bunker. He remained there for another week until he was killed alongside Nasrallah in the same hideout."
The killing of Nasrallah's successor, Hashem Safieddine, was also dramatic. It occurred only days after he assumed the role, and he, too, was killed in a bunker strike.
"In that case as well, we fired 83 missiles, but the operation itself was much more challenging," Col. S. said.
