Battered and beaten in the immediate and short-term but far from defeated in the long term. That’s how Prem Mahadevan, a Switzerland-based researcher on intelligence and author of Spies Among The Sands: The Mossad & Israeli National Security, views the current scenario of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
In an interview on The Gist on StratNews Global, Mahadevan argues that the elimination of Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the Oct 7 attack last year, is a big moment for Israel.
The danger here is that by eliminating all known faces in Hamas, the field has been left open for his successor, who could be people largely unknown to the Israelis and therefore getting the measure of them could be that much more difficult.
“As for Hezbollah, Nasrallah’s death in my assessment was a major psychological victory but less damaging to a group which was built to have a lot of organisational depth. That depth has been considerably flattened as a result of the pager blasts,” Mahadevan said.
How could Hezbollah respond? Or is it any position to respond?
Mahadevan points to reports in Israel that Hezbollah is regrouping, which could be psychological war being waged by the Jewish state to prepare the world for an escalation in the north or even a clash with Iran.
Or for that matter, an attack in some third country outside the region. It could be Africa, Europe or the US.
Mahadevan believes that after abjectly failing to alert the country to the Oct 7 attack, the intelligence agencies have got their act together. The successive strikes on Ismail Haniyeh, Hasan Nasrallah and many others testify to the sophistication and daring of the Israelis.
“But I would say their success has been more to daring and the accumulated experience of decades of covert operations, rather than any particular genius for intelligence work.”
Tune in for more in this chat with Prem Mahadevan, researcher and writer on intelligence.
