The bearded man sitting before the Unit 504 interrogator answered questions patiently and in considerable detail. Several days of interrogations had passed during which he tried to buy time, outsmart his captors, conceal information – but once the dam broke, he opened up completely. With an Israeli flag hanging on the wall behind him, he recounted the trips to Iran, the voyages in Africa, secret meetings with Hezbollah's chief of staff Fuad Shukr, and instructions flowing directly from the organization's leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
Throughout the year he was held captive, Imad Amhaz, "The Captain," methodically laid out the complete picture behind one of Hezbollah's most secret and well-funded initiatives – a strategic, creative, and ambitious project that received the name "The Secret Maritime File." Only now can the existence of this underground project be revealed for the first time, along with new details about the commando operation to kidnap Amhaz from the heart of Lebanon – a daring and extraordinary operation that, due to the torrent of war events, remained buried in the depths of memory. Until now.
Nothing about the apparent IDF naval commando raid on Batroun to capture a single mid-level Hezbollah commander Imad Amhaz adds up.
The IDF doesn't seem to lack info from inside Hezbollah, and they have not been shy about eliminating targets with F-16s as they find them. Could… pic.twitter.com/MVVNbozbG4
— Saul Sadka (@Saul_Sadka) November 2, 2024
The codename: Jarih
A. is a 23-year-old woman, slim and quiet. If you passed her on the street, you wouldn't imagine she was the primary person responsible for one of the war's most impressive operations. She began her career as an "Arabist" in Unit 8200 and later transferred to Naval Intelligence as an analyst. Today, she's a permanent service member with the rank of staff sergeant, whose job is to track anyone who could pose a threat to Israeli Navy vessels.
The Israeli Navy's Shayetet 13 commando unit carried out a raid in northern Lebanon last night, capturing a Hezbollah official, the military confirms.
The Hezbollah operative, Imad Amhaz, is considered by the IDF to be a "significant source of knowledge" in the terror group's… pic.twitter.com/21GZJGcgkh
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) November 2, 2024
"At Naval Intelligence, we have operational methods and capabilities that allow us to search for almost anyone's traces," she says.
At the end of 2021, A. began tracking a mid-level Hezbollah operative named Imad Amhaz, whose codename in the organization was Jarih. Amhaz, 39, a Shiite native of the Bekaa Valley, joined Hezbollah as an operative in 2004. In 2007, he completed a several-month military course in Iran, and upon returning to Lebanon, joined Unit 7900 – Hezbollah's shore-to-sea missile unit – as a radar operator. Since the Second Lebanon War and the fatal strike on the INS Hanit, this unit has greatly troubled Naval Intelligence personnel. He managed to assist the Assad regime forces in the Syrian civil war, and his brother was also a Hezbollah operative as a fighter in the Radwan Force.
In retrospect, it would become clear that a few months before A. began focusing on him, Amhaz was chosen as the central axis of Hezbollah's ambitious and secret project. Amhaz, it was decided at the organization's leadership level, would become the captain of "The Secret Maritime File" – "a strategic project, very secret, an event that could have changed the situation against us and also against other countries," says Colonel A., head of the Intelligence Division in the Navy.
"We can grab him"
After two years of surveillance, Naval Intelligence understood there was an opportunity to kidnap Amhaz and bring him for interrogation in Israel. "I realized we could grab him," says A., who initiated the idea. Her proposal advanced up the approval ladder with dizzying speed and received the prime minister's approval as well.
Naturally, the unit chosen to execute the kidnapping was Shayetet 13, the Navy's elite commando unit, which seemed born precisely for operations of this type. The Shayetet took the mission with both hands, extracted from A. all the intelligence she had to provide about Amhaz and his daily routine, and within just a few weeks prepared a detailed raid plan.
The plan was executed in early November 2023 and carried out with stunning success. Amhaz was kidnapped from the apartment where he was staying, approximately 140 kilometers north of the Israeli border, without a single shot being fired.
The full article will be published this weekend on the website and in the "Israel This Week" section.
