Israel-Middle East conflict: A history of inventive assassination methods

An ambulance arrives at the site after the explosion of the wireless communication devices, known as pagers, and take injured people to the hospital in Beirut, Lebanon on September 17, 2024. Photo / Getty Images

Israel has a long history of inventive, unusual assassination methods, and reports that at least nine people may have been killed by exploding pagers could be its latest grim chapter.

As of Tuesday night, Israel had not claimed responsibility for the attack – but it bears many of the hallmarks of its special forces units, such as Mossad.

Formed in 1949, the year after the birth of the state of Israel, Mossad has been linked to many of Israel’s most daring killings.

Mossad was suspected of deploying a remote-controlled machinegun to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. Photo / Getty Images

Over seven decades, it is thought to have relied on exploding books, remote-controlled machineguns and even poisoned toothpaste to reach its targets, with mixed results.

In 2012, a documentary claimed that a failed 1970s Israeli assassination plot against Saddam Hussein involved a book rigged with explosives.

The documentary, Sealed Lips, recounted how the notoriously paranoid Saddam refused to open the book himself, instead passing it to one of his officials.

As soon as the official opened the book, it exploded, killing the official but failing to injure the Iraqi dictator.

Then there was the mysterious case of the poisoned toothpaste, allegedly deployed to kill Wadie Haddad, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

According to the 2018 book Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations, by Ronen Bergman, a New York Times journalist, a deep-cover Mossad hit squad was involved.

An ambulance takes some of the injured to hospital after the explosion of the wireless communication devices, known as pagers, in Beirut, on September 17, 2024. Photo / Getty Images

In 1978, the group gained access to Haddad’s home and swapped his toothpaste for an identical tube containing a toxin developed by Israeli scientists.

The poison was said to have seeped into his mouth through his mucous membranes each time he cleaned his teeth, leading to him being taken to hospital in Iraq.

The Palestinian commander was eventually treated in East Germany, where doctors found the suspicious toothpaste in his toiletries bag.

His death was reportedly slow and painful, with his screams heard from corridors in the hospital, where he died after 10 days.

Mossad was suspected of deploying a remote-controlled machinegun to assassinate Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the head of Iran’s nuclear programme, in 2020.

The gun was said to have been smuggled into the country piece by piece, assembled and then placed to ambush the scientist as he travelled near Tehran.

Bergman’s book also contains a detailed account of a January 2010 assassination in Dubai, where Mossad agents descended on a hotel to target Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a Hamas arms supplier.

The hit squad flew into the Emirati city from various European locations on false passports, posing as tennis players. They then killed Mabhouh using a paralysing drug, leaving his body to be discovered by hotel staff.

Bergman himself points out that many other attempted assassinations did not succeed, and were even botched, but they only spread Mossad’s notoriety around the world.

“Occasional blunders have only enhanced the Mossad’s aggressive and merciless reputation,” he writes. “Not a bad thing when the goal of deterrence is as important as the goal of pre-empting specific hostile acts.”