Inside Israel’s daring capture of a Hezbollah naval officer

The raid deep in Lebanon took only four minutes, and a street camera was erased remotely to protect the soldiers.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

New details are emerging from the Lebanese press regarding Israel’s daring raid Friday to capture a Hezbollah naval captain from deep inside the land of the cedars.

Al-Jadid reported Saturday that 20 members of the Israeli naval commandos, Shayetet 13, took only four minutes to get into the apartment of Imad Amhaz in the coastal town of Batroun, grab him and leave.

Two of the men were reported as being “civilians,” probably meaning that they were dressed in ordinary clothes.

In the video from a street camera that has gone viral, an armed group can be seen with some of them holding onto a prisoner, ostensibly Amhaz, with a shirt covering his face.

Al Jadid also claimed that a public security camera had some of its footage “erased remotely” in an attempt by the IDF to prevent unwanted information about the soldiers to be revealed.

Lebanese security has confiscated the street cameras that could help them figure out what exactly occurred.

Ten SIM cards, a phone and several foreign passports, all with his photo, were found in the apartment where Amhaz was staying, the report added.

No mention was made of any German peacekeepers from UNIFIL aiding the group, as previously reported.

A UNIFIL spokesperson denied that soldiers from the peacekeeping force had anything to do with the operation.

Hezbollah gave a bare-bones acknowledgement of the raid by saying that there had been a “Zionist aggression in the Batroun area.”

Lebanese officials have put out contradictory reports on Amhaz, with some saying that he was a captain in the Lebanese navy, and others, such as Minister of Transportation Ali Hamie, maintaining that he was a civilian ship captain who was in Batroun for training purposes.

In announcing his capture, the IDF called Amhaz a “maritime expert” who was transferred to Israel for interrogation by military intelligence’s Unit 504.

“We will act in all ways in the war with Hezbollah and use all possible fighting methods to hit the organization and produce quality intelligence for us on the enemy,” the army said. “We will act wherever we can succeed in capturing significant operatives, as has also happened in South Lebanon.”

AP cited three Lebanese “judicial officials” who said an investigation had begun in order to find out if Amhaz was indeed linked to the Shiite terror organization that has launched nearly 10,000 rockets, missiles, UAVs and anti-tank grenades at Israel to support Hamas over the past 13 months as the IDF fights to destroy it in the Gaza Strip.

They also threw out the hypothesis that Amhaz was an Israeli spy who required a rescue for unknown reasons.

Neighbors in the apartment building told the news agency that when the men broke into Amhaz’s apartment, they announced themselves as being from state security.

Hezbollah terroristIsraeli navyLebanonShayetet 13