A bearded figure sat facing an interrogator from Unit 504 of the Military Intelligence, responding to questions with patience and considerable detail. Several days of interrogations passed during which he attempted to stall, outwit authorities, and conceal information – but once "the dam burst," he revealed everything.
With an Israeli flag hanging on the wall behind him, the detainee detailed trips to Iran, voyages across Africa, clandestine meetings with Hezbollah's chief military commander Fuad Shukr, and directives flowing directly from the organization's leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Throughout the year he remained in captivity, Imad Amhaz, known as "The Captain," systematically laid out the complete picture behind one of Hezbollah's most secretive and organized operations – a strategic, creative, and ambitious project dubbed "The Clandestine Maritime File." Only now can the existence of this underground initiative be disclosed for the first time, along with fresh details about the commando mission to abduct Amhaz from the heart of Lebanon – a bold and extraordinary operation that remained submerged in the depths of memory due to the torrent of wartime events.
This narrative, which could easily become a Hollywood film, might begin on the night of November 2, 2024, when a handful of Shayetet 13 commandos silently raided the Lebanese coastal town of Batroun, located 87 miles from the Israeli border, and removed Amhaz while he slept in his bed without firing a single shot. Alternatively, the story could open with a close-up of Colonel A., head of Naval Intelligence, standing on the dock at the Shayetet base in Atlit, welcoming the fighters returning home from the successful operation, merely patting their shoulders and verifying everyone's health and safety. The account might also start with a scene unfolding in the basements of Dahieh, starring Secretary-General Nasrallah, Chief of Staff Shukr, and "The Captain," where the three architects weave a hair-raising conspiracy.
However, the story begins with A., a quiet, slender 23-year-old woman who, had you passed her on the street, you would never imagine was primarily responsible for one of the war's most astonishing operations.
A. started her path as an "Arabist" (an Arab world specialist) in Unit 8200, subsequently transferring to serve as an analyst in Naval Intelligence. Today, she serves as a permanent staff member with the rank of Sergeant First Class, whose role is to track anyone who could pose a threat to Israeli Navy vessels. "We have, in Naval Intelligence, operational methods and capabilities that allow us to search for almost anyone in the fringes," she stated.
At the end of 2021, A. began monitoring a mid-level Hezbollah operative named Imad Amhaz, whose organizational nickname was "Jarich." Amhaz, 39, a Shiite native of the Bekaa Valley, joined Hezbollah in 2004. In 2007, he completed a several-month military course in Iran, and upon his return to Lebanon, joined Unit 7900 as a radar operator – Hezbollah's coastal missile unit that has deeply troubled Naval Intelligence personnel since the Second Lebanon War and the deadly strike on the INS Hanit.
The interrogator asked Amhaz: Who knew about the project?
The operative responded: "Who was aware of this was the team itself, Nur al-Din, the operator, Male,k who was the head of the bureau of Fuad Shukr (Hezbollah's Chief of Staff who was eliminated in July 2024), Fuad Shukr himself, and Abu Musa, who came after Fuad Shukr but didn't stay for long. All were killed except Nur al-Din. I don't know if he was also killed while I wasn't (in Lebanon)."
Q: Did you meet with senior officials? For example, with Fuad Shukr?
Amhaz answered: "The first time we returned from the file, he asked to meet with us... This file is related to the maritime domain ... These can be defensive or offensive operations... As long as you have a ship, money, and people, you can operate against anything. Israel is the main target."
Q: Does Hezbollah operate against other targets as well?
Amhaz confirmed: "The organization sees the US as an enemy, for example."
To all appearances, Imad Amhaz was just another Hezbollah operative among dozens who appeared on A.'s radar. Yet something about him was unusual. Despite being a devoted operative who was educated in the Hezbollah youth movement, Amhaz was not a devout Shiite. He spent much of his time at the gym, his body decorated with muscles and tattoos. One of these was a portrait of his wife, who was herself tattooed. "She had tattoos of roses," A. said. "During his interrogation, he shared that he and his wife had many fights, and at one point, they separated. After that, he had to hide the tattoo with her portrait until they eventually reunited. He is not the perfect partner – one who likes to play the field and loves to live the bachelor life, even when he is not single. He cultivates his muscles, a true hedonist. In short, he was not the conservative operative. During this period, I tracked several figures, but Amhaz was always at the back of my mind. Each time I returned to him to see what was new. I tried to understand why he was exposed, what his value was as a Hezbollah operative."
Q: It sounds as though you knew him well.
"Yes. I knew his daily routine, his weaknesses, his character – everything."
Q: And what can you say about his character?
"That he is a good soldier. When he is given an order, he says 'yes' and executes it."
To identify a big fish
I met A. in the office of the Head of the Naval Intelligence Department, Rear Adm. A., who has held the most senior position in Naval Intelligence for the past year. Several floors below us is the unit's "Pit" (underground command center), from which the operation to abduct Amhaz was managed. Joining the conversation was Lt. Col. D., who began her military career as a combat soldier in the Snapir Unit (naval port security unit), fell in love with the sea, and rose through the ranks to become head of the Targeting and Direction Branch in the Naval Intelligence Department.
The branch's production floor is filled with analysts like A., all of whom are Arabic speakers who serve as intelligence detectives. "Fishermen," as the veteran seaman Rear Adm. A. phrased it. "It is like casting a line and seeing which fish is caught on the hook. The point is to identify, amid the blur of people on the other side, who could be a 'big fish' and then focus on him. This is exactly what happened with Amhaz."
From the moment she began to take an interest in Amhaz and to focus more and more of her intelligence resources on him, A. discovered that he held mysterious meetings with senior Hezbollah officials. One of them was Ali Abed al-Hassan Nour al-Din. Nour al-Din is married to the daughter of Fuad Shukr, who, until his assassination in July 2024, served as the Hezbollah Chief of Staff and the right-hand man of Hassan Nasrallah. As such, Nour al-Din managed several of Hezbollah's secret projects, those directed personally by Shukr and Nasrallah. And now, for some reason, it turned out that he was meeting secretly with the muscular and tattooed Amhaz. "They sat at the same table and passed messages," Lt. Col. D. said. Later, during his interrogation in Israel, Amhaz would reveal that he also met Fuad Shukr himself. "This was a great excitement for him," D. said. "The connection to senior officials gave him pride and motivation."
During the interrogation, the goals of these secret meetings were also fully clarified. It turned out that several months before A. began to focus on him, Amhaz was chosen to be the central axis in an ambitious Hezbollah venture – the kind of secret projects that Nour al-Din managed for Shukr and Nasrallah. Amhaz, the organization's leadership decided, would become the captain of the "Secret Naval File."
"A very, very secret strategic project, an event that could have changed the situation against us and also against other countries," Rear Adm. A. said. "This is the big fish we caught on our hook."
"The big surprise"
The "Secret Naval File" germinated sometime in 2016. From fragments of information that reached Israeli intelligence over the years, it became clear that the goal was generally to create a Hezbollah "terror ship" – an infrastructure that would allow the organization to independently operate a large civilian merchant vessel that could roam the seas without suspicion, enter civilian ports, and carry out attacks that would change the balance of terror against Israel and its allies. "To take a civilian vessel under cover and place offensive capabilities on it as far as the imagination can go," Rear Adm. A. said. "Think about September 11 – you take a civilian platform and use it to carry out a strategic terror act. This was the goal."
The project, which, due to its importance, was directed personally by Hassan Nasrallah and Fuad Shukr and whose management passed to Nour al-Din after their elimination, was, as stated, highly compartmentalized and included only a small handful of secret partners. "Nasrallah and Shukr treated this as their big surprise," A. said. "Because of this, everything was managed in a very centralized manner, without intermediate ranks."
After several years of delays due to budget difficulties and internal organizational problems, in 2021, by order of Nasrallah, the project gained momentum. One of the first steps was to choose the captain of the future terror ship, someone who could manage the project from a maritime perspective. The Captain.
Amhaz was the one chosen for the role. Beyond his mysterious meetings with Nour al-Din, he began sailing between European and African countries and gained experience as a worker on cargo ships, all under the guise of an innocent civilian. "He simply boarded ships as a civilian and sailed with them with the aim of gaining maritime experience," D. said. "The ambition was to log enough sea time, rise through the ranks, and eventually become a civilian captain who could lead a civilian merchant ship himself. Alongside the practical hours, he also studied theory, and he progressed. This path gave him both operational experience and civilian cover so that once he became a certified captain of a civilian ship, he would not be suspected. In fact, he was operating under cover."
What kind of attacks did the leadership plan to carry out using the terror ship that Amhaz would sail? One can only imagine – the hijacking of a passenger ship, an attack on the Karish gas field, a raid by dozens of armed operatives through Israel's Haifa or Ashdod ports. "In the interrogation, we insisted with Amhaz, saying to him, 'Come on, tell us what you planned,'" D. said. "But then we realized the goal was still only to build the capability, this muscle. He said, 'Whatever the organization decides, we will know how to do.' For them, everything was on the table – from hitting strategic points to striking the soft underbelly of Israel."
As part of his training as a civilian captain, Amhaz was absent from his home in the village of Qmatiye for many long months, where he lived with his wife and children. "In the process, he received a salary from Hezbollah, and while he was absent from home, the one who took care of his family was Nour al-Din," A. said.
In 2024, he returned to Lebanon, and in September, he began studying for a captain's degree at the Maritime Sciences and Technology Institute, a civilian institution located north of Beirut in the town of Batroun, a Christian-majority area where Hezbollah has only a minimal presence. Amhaz also rented a vacation cabin in Batroun, even though his home was about an hour's drive away. "He could finish the school day and drive home, yet he chose to rent an apartment in Batroun and sleep there," Lt. Col. D. said. "This is part of his hedonism, perhaps also part of his desire to concentrate on his studies." And Amhaz concentrated very much on his studies. "A diligent student," D. said. "Even in the interrogation, you see that he is an educated person, not a peasant who just came to fight."
In December 2024, after three years of preparation and several more weeks of study in Batroun, Amhaz was supposed to receive his coveted captain's diploma. He never received it. "The moment Amhaz moved to live in the coastal town of Batroun, I realized there was an opportunity here," A. said. "I understood that he could be plucked."
Setting out
Part of the role of analysts like A. in the Targeting and Direction Branch is not only to research the enemy on the other side of the border but also to direct operations toward them. When A. realized that she had indeed caught a big fish on her hook, she began to pull. "A. is the one who brought the initiative, the tug on the sleeve to set out on an abduction operation," her commander, Lt. Col. D., said. "She came and said, 'Someone is interesting here, let's bring him.' And from the moment this idea was thrown into the air, we, as commanders, said, 'There is a cool idea here, let's examine it.'"
The idea, which A. first raised during September 2024, progressed through the chain of approvals at a dizzying speed. "Everyone understood that there was someone privy to the secret, who was part of a strategic capability that Hezbollah is building," D. said. "Beyond that, the timing was good. We were already in Operation Northern Arrows (the military offensive against Hezbollah) and amidst an escalation in the campaign against Lebanon, and it was possible to dare more and challenge the boundaries and carry out operations of this type."
Naturally, the unit chosen to carry out the abduction was Shayetet 13, the elite commando unit of the Navy, which was practically born for operations of this kind. In the Shayetet, they took the mission with both hands, drew on all the intelligence A. had to provide about Amhaz and his daily routine, and within a few short weeks, they prepared a detailed raid plan. "The Shayetet enlisted immediately; they were very enthusiastic," D. said.
Although this was a dangerous move intended to take place deep in enemy territory, within a short time, the operation to abduct "The Captain" had received all required approvals, including that of the prime minister. "It was necessary to convince the appointed levels that the risk level for the force justified this operation," Rear Adm. A. said, who was present at some of these dramatic meetings. "These are places where you feel the weight of responsibility."
When A. received the news that "her" operation was moving forward, she found it hard to believe. "I was in shock, they were so on board," she smiled with embarrassment.
The operation was carried out on the night between November 1 and 2. Around 1:00 a.m., a small force of Shayetet soldiers positioned themselves at the entrance to Amhaz's vacation cabin in Batroun. The operation was accompanied by Naval Intelligence personnel from within the Navy's Pit in the Kirya (IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv). "It is as if you are part of the force," A. recalled. "We are not physically with them, but we understand exactly what is happening on the ground. Many times, the executing force looks to intelligence for guidance, asking whether the target is at the objective and whether everything is working according to the plan. When you answer 'yes, he is there,' it is a moment with a lot of responsibility, but also a moment of a dream coming true."
According to reports in the Lebanese media, the abduction operation was carried out by a force of about 25 combat soldiers and lasted only four minutes. In a short video recorded by a security camera in the area of the operation, Shayetet personnel can be seen in their combat gear leading Amhaz down one of the streets, his head covered by a shirt.
In an urgent military inquiry conducted in Lebanon in the days following the abduction, it was claimed that the Lebanese Navy did not identify the Israeli infiltration into Batroun and that German naval forces, who are supposed to secure the maritime arena in the area under the UNIFIL mandate, did not report any suspicious movement during the night. "The army cannot identify small boats that slip under the radar," the Lebanese Chief of Staff Joseph Aoun, today the President of the State, was quoted as saying in a local newspaper.
By the time the inquiry was published, Amhaz was already deep in Israeli territory, having vomited several times on the way from Batroun and shown signs of anxiety. "I held my breath until the moment the commandos returned to the country's territory," A. said. "It was a sense of relief. I have been on this thing for two years, and here – we finally reached that moment."
Lt. Col. D. said, "If it were possible to open champagne in the army, we would have done it."
Rear Adm. A. said, "For me, in this event, there were two moments of satisfaction. The first was when they realized the force had arrived in Israel along with Amhaz, and we knew our soldiers had returned safely. I waited for them on the beach at the Shayetet base in Atlit, and it was a great pride. Shayetet 13 is a wonderful, mission-driven unit. It is a cliché, but there is no mission they cannot meet. The second moment of satisfaction came after several days of interrogations, when we realized we had not caught a small fry. The moment he spoke about the 'Secret Naval File,' about what he knows how to do – and it took several days – we realized we had done something valuable that truly contributed to the security of the State of Israel."
Not exactly an "innocent civilian"
The interrogation of Amhaz indeed revealed new details to Naval Intelligence that they had not known about the "Secret Maritime File" and the extent of Hezbollah's seriousness in implementing the project. "At first, he completely denied any connection to Hezbollah," A. related. "But slowly, as time passed, he began to open up. He gave us a lot of information about the file and also revealed to us the meetings with Shukr."
Rear Adm. A. said, "Before that, we knew a general story, and he not only confirmed it for us but fleshed out the details for us. This gave us the understanding that there was a real, actual project here, with intentions."
The publication of details from Amhaz's interrogation, for the first time, may certainly change the narrative built in Lebanon around his abduction. His family took the trouble to demonstrate and be interviewed wherever possible to claim that Amhaz is merely a civilian seaman who was abducted through no fault of his own. "My son is a civilian maritime captain who took a course at the Institute of Marine Sciences in Batroun," his father, Fadel, said in a newspaper interview. "My son is at sea most of the time and has no connection to parties. He is not connected to politics."
The Prime Minister of Lebanon at the time, Najib Mikati, also announced the day after the operation that Lebanon would file an official complaint with the UN Security Council regarding the abduction of Amhaz, and the Lebanese Transport Minister said that Amhaz was a "captain of civilian ships."
"We are now sending a clear message," Lt. Col. D. said in response. "The Navy is not bored and does not abduct innocent civilians. This is an exceptional operative in Hezbollah who was entrusted with a secret project that was supposed to surprise Israel completely. He is as far from innocent as possible."
The Lebanese attempt to attach a civilian image to Amhaz fit well with another move that took place about a year after his abduction – the release of the Israeli Elizabeth Tsurkov from captivity in September 2025, who was kidnapped in Iraq and held there by a pro-Iranian terror organization. The official Iranian news agency Tasnim claimed then that Tsurkov was released in exchange for two Lebanese figures held by Israel, including Amhaz.
In the Naval Intelligence Department, they are not aware of any such thing, and in any case, Amhaz is still in Israeli hands while Tsurkov is at her home. In our conversations, we were unable to confirm that the release of Amhaz was part of the move to release Tsurkov.
Despite Amhaz being in our hands, the analyst A. and her commanders are not at rest. "For us, the operation is not over," D. said. "We are still following the 'Secret Naval File,' and Nour al-Din, who stands at the head of the file, is still with us. To our understanding, he is still promoting this project, and perhaps other secret files as well, and it is important to us that he knows the account with him is open."
Q: By the way, did you meet Amhaz after he was brought to Israel?
D. said, "A. and I were in the same corridor with him, but we only looked at him. Interrogation is less our field. The unit responsible for his interrogation is 504, and there is a clear division between us. Even if Amhaz noticed us, he has no idea who we are and what our connection to him is."
A. said, "We saw him from a distance, but we did not speak with him."
Q: And how did it feel to see "The Captain" like that, face to face, after two years in which you tracked him from afar?
"Shocking," A. said. "Absolutely shocking."
