TEL AVIV, Israel — The recent attacks targeting Hezbollah members with exploding pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon may seem to be the stuff of spy novels, but the impact and implications of the complex operations blamed on Israel are very real. Lebanese officials said at least 30 people were killed and some 3,000 wounded by the explosions, and the chief of Hezbollah acknowledged Thursday that the Iran-backed militant group had taken a serious blow. The extent of Hezbollah's retaliation for what its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, called an Israeli declaration of war could determine whether there is an actual full-scale war between the two bitter foes.
While Israel has not claimed responsibility, the complex attacks appear to bear the fingerprints of the country's foreign intelligence agency. Below is a look at the Mossad's long, albeit partially unclaimed history of attacking Israel's enemies with everything from car bombs to malware. The deaths of numerous high-profile figures in the region have been attributed to Israel over the last two decades alone: Most recently, top Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr was killed in Beirut just hours before Hamas' longtime political chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Iran's capital on July 31.
The Hamas leader was killed in what Iranian officials called an Israeli "hit" in Tehran after he attended the funeral of the country's former president, who died in a helicopter crash. Few details of the targeted strike have ever been confirmed.