Israel’s shadow war at sea keeps widening—this time with Shayetet 13, the Navy’s special-forces unit often described as Israel’s equivalent of the US Navy Seals, operating in places that sound almost unreal on paper.
On Tuesday, Shayetet 13 invaded Naqoura, Lebanon, from the sea — the first time such an operation has occurred in Lebanon since 2000, the Israel Navy reported Thursday. Misryoum newsroom reported that the move fits into what the military calls a new attitude by the IDF and the navy after the October 7 massacre of forward-leaning defense. For the ground forces, that’s meant buffer zones in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria. For the navy, it’s meant special forces taking on more risky, aggressive operations behind enemy lines. Actually, you can almost picture how different the planning has to feel when rescue might not be part of the equation.
In one mission, five Shayetet 13 naval commandos were sent thousands of kilometers away from Israel with no support and no immediate rescue plan in the event of complications, the navy disclosed, without revealing dates and locations. The message there is pretty blunt: the operation wasn’t just about reach, but about operating when things go wrong—if they do.
The Navy also described yet another vaguely detailed mission, saying it had sent Shayetet 13 on a mission to a part of the world where it had never operated before. Misryoum editorial desk noted that joint operations with the Mossad have reached new levels in recent years, and the Navy declined to connect the dots regarding exact operations where it worked with the Mossad.
Still, the reporting did connect some dots—just not all of them. The Navy said the Naval Intelligence Division was directly involved in the killing of Iranian Navy commander Alireza Tangsiri and had facilitated IAF attacks against Iranian naval cruise missiles and sites related to submarines and other underwater threats. It also said it had been involved in both intelligence and operations in eliminating five senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force liaison officials with Hezbollah in an attack on the Ramada Hotel in Beirut on March 8.
That March 8 attack is now being used as a benchmark for how these partnerships are functioning when the targets are tight and the networks overlap. The Navy said it fired 14 missiles to kill five officials, who were top commanders in Quds Force-Hezbollah intelligence and terrorist financing and had links to Palestinian terrorist groups in Lebanon. The terrorist financing official was the key actor in transferring $770 million from Iran to Hezbollah over the past year, the IDF reported. Misryoum analysis indicates this is part of a broader shift toward faster, more integrated intelligence-to-action pipelines.
And it’s not only Mossad in the story. In Gaza, the Shin Bet took the lead for planning top-level Hamas assassinations. While most of these were carried out by the IAF, on Thursday the Navy said it had also been involved in a number of these assassinations, working directly with the Shin Bet in new ways. Last November 19, the Navy worked with the IDF Intelligence Corps to assassinate Hamas naval commander Abdullah Abu Samael
after Hamas significantly violated the ceasefire. On March 16, the Shin Bet, the navy, and the IDF Intelligence Corps jointly assassinated Yunas Mahmoud Hasin Elian, a top Hamas naval commander. Elian had been substantially responsible for attempts by Hamas to reconstitute itself as posing a naval threat to Israel, the IDF said. Then on March 31, the navy, working with other Israeli intelligence agencies, assassinated Hezbollah’s commander for the southern front, Hajj Yusuf Ismail Hashem,
it said.
If you want a real-world moment to pin this down: on the quay, salt air and diesel smell can linger long after the last boat leaves, and you’d never guess what’s being coordinated offshore. But this is the point—these operations are designed to stay “off the radar,” even while they expand.
For years, it’s been well known that the Mossad has been the main actor for locating and assassinating top Iranian officials, whether in Iran itself, or Quds Force officials overseas, including in Lebanon. The Navy has also become involved in these efforts, and the IDF Intelligence Corps is usually in the picture too, with the Navy saying their work together in recent years has been unparalleled. The headline on the surface is about raids and missiles; underneath it’s about a covert sea war that keeps moving, adapting, and—quietly—getting bigger.
Netflix’s Jail Blazers doc reconnects fans to Portland’s rise