The Israeli intelligence agency Mossad has a special unit called Caesarea that is tasked with hunting down Hamas leaders. Photo/Reuters
GAZA – The Caesarea Unit is a covert operational branch of the Mossad tasked with placing and managing spies primarily in Arab countries and around the world.
The unit was founded in the early 1970s and one of its founders was the infamous Israeli spy Mike Harari.
Caesarea leverages its extensive intelligence network in Arab and Middle Eastern countries to gather intelligence and conduct surveillance on current and future targets.
Michael Harari, the top Mossad official, founded Caesarea’s deadliest unit, known in Hebrew as Kidon (“bayonet”), composed of professional assassins specializing in assassination and sabotage operations.
Kidon members often come from branches of the Israeli military, including the army or special forces.
The Mossad targets not only Palestinian leaders and agents, but also Syrian, Lebanese, Iranian and European leaders.
Caesarea is the equivalent of the CIA’s Special Activities Center (SAC), which was called the Special Activities Division before being reorganized and renamed in 2016.
The CIA carries out covert paramilitary missions – including targeted killing operations – through its Special Operations Group (SOG), which is part of SAC and bears some similarities to the Mossad’s Kidon.
According to Al Jazeera, until 2000, the year that marked the start of the second Intifada in the occupied Palestinian territories, Israel had carried out more than 500 assassination operations that had resulted in the deaths of more than 1,000 people, including targets and people in the vicinity.
During the Second Intifada, Israel carried out another 1,000 operations, 168 of which were successful. Since then, Israel has carried out at least 800 other operations aimed at killing Hamas civilian and military leaders in the Gaza Strip and abroad.
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2024-01-07 14:21:00
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