Israel’s Nuclear Program in the Gaza Strip and its Counterattack on Hamas During the Oct. 7 Attack: Israeli Airstrike, Hacking, and Other Attacks

On Friday, an Israeli airstrike took down an eight-story building in a densely populated neighborhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs as Hezbollah members were meeting in the basement, according to Israel. Among those killed was Ibrahim Akil, a top Hezbollah official who commanded the group’s special forces unit, known as the Radwan Force.

Since the Hamas-led attack on Israel last Oct. 7, Israel has conducted a series of assassinations of commanders of Iran’s regional proxy forces, including Hamas and Hezbollah.

The war in Gaza began with Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack into Israel, in which Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people and took around 250 hostage. Three out of 100 captives are thought to be dead. Gaza’s Health Ministry says over 41,000 Palestinians have been killed. It does not say how many were fighters but says women and children make up over half of the dead.

In 2018, Israeli spies armed with torches broke into a warehouse in Tehran and seized a trove of documents about Iran’s nuclear program. The documents were used by the Prime Minister of Israel to accuse Iran of lying.

Israel’s Dimona complex, the heart of its never-acknowledged nuclear arms program in the Negev desert, was used as a testing ground for the Stuxnet computer worm. Tehran needs to make a nuclear weapon, and a fifth of its nuclear centrifuges was wiped out by the destructive program.

They cast a far wider net than the attacks that targeted individuals. Israel has not claimed responsibility for this week’s attacks on devices, or for many other attacks that have been attributed to it. They include:

Four people with links to Iran’s nuclear program were killed by hit men on motorcycles. In 2010, an assassin attached a sticky bomb to a car door. In Tehran, a vehicle was shot through the window by someone who then sped off.

The top nuclear scientist in Iran was killed in November of 2020 by a truck mounted machine gun attached to a remote-controlled robotic apparatus. It had taken months of planning for the operation to happen.

ARRAF: Lebanon has been having economic and other crises for a long time. Lebanese Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said this is an extremely dangerous phase the country’s in, and he’s ordered security services to crack down, particularly on foreigners, to uncover a spy network that officials believed helped Israel implement these attacks. At the same time, though, that people in the southern suburbs are mourning the dead, others were setting off fireworks last night over the harbor in wedding celebrations.

Angular Momentum of the Israeli Airstrike: The NPR Voice of the Prime Minister, Ibrahim Akil, and the U.S. Support for Israel

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. There is a chance that the text may be changed, updated or revised in the future. There may be an accuracy that is incorrect and availability that is not. The audio record is the most accurate of NPR’s programming.

ARAF: Qassem said they were in shock after the attacks. The pagers exploded at the same time. More than 42 people were killed and over 3000 were injured by the walkie-talkie detonation the next day. He said that the attacks didn’t turn people against Hezbollah, and that it took little time for the group to rebound. He said that Hezbollah was just a little bit angry at Israel and was planning a lot of revenge. The next generation of fighters were created by the Israeli attacks.

There is a drain. Yeah. The prime minister says that the attacks in the last week were meant to send a message. How do you think Hezbollah would interpret that message?

The NAIM is speaking through a interpreter. This is a nation that cannot be defeated. But the United States, America, it is drowned. It is swamped from its head to toe in the aggression and the genocide with Israel.

ARRAF: Yeah, it’s been a dizzying few days here. In the southern suburbs, where an Israeli strike demolished a building on Friday, there have been two days of funerals.

ARRAF: The burial of the Hezbollah commander who Israel says was the intended target of its Lebanon airstrike took place a few hours ago. Ibrahim Akil was praised by Hezbollah’s undersecretary general as the founder of the group’s special operations unit. Qassem used his address to discuss the U.S.’s apparent support for Israel, as it was broadcasted live on Iranian state TV. This is what he says through an interpreter.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it hit over 400 militant sites in southern Lebanon over the last 24 hours.

The rockets streaked over a wider and deeper area of northern Israel than previous volleys and set off air raid sirens across the region. The Israeli military said rockets had been fired “toward civilian areas,” pointing to a possible escalation after previous barrages had mainly been aimed at military targets.

A 76-year-old man was moderately wounded near Haifa, and was one of four people treated by Magen David Adom rescue service. It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the damage.

The Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, the Most wanted List of Israelis, has not been defeated in the 2006 Gaza War between Israel and Hezbollah

Neither side is believed to be seeking a war. In recent weeks, Israel has shifted its attention to Lebanon and promised to bring calm on the border so that citizens can return to their homes. Hezbollah will only stop its attacks if a cease-fire in Gaza is reached, which is why the long- running negotiations between the United States, Egypt and Qatar have not been successful to this point.

Hezbollah said it launched dozens of Fadi 1 and Fadi 2 missiles, a new type of weapon it had not used before, in response to the repeated Israeli attacks that targeted various Lebanon regions.

The health minister in Lebanon said at least seven women and three children were killed in the airstrike on the building. He said that there were more than 70 injuries, including 15 who were hospitalized.

The strike was the worst since the war of 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah, with more than 20 people dead and 23 still missing.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the attack broke up the group’s chain of command and took out a person who was responsible for the deaths of Israelis. He was on the US’s most wanted list for a long period of time, due to his alleged involvement in the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the kidnapping of American and German hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s.