A few days after reports surfaced that an Iranian informant gave Israel key information leading to the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad disclosed that the head of Israel’s national intelligence agency, Mossad, who is active in Iran to combat Israeli spying, is an Israeli national.

Ahmadinejad further stated that 20 additional agents were involved in the special unit that Iran's secret services had established to counter Mossad's operations in the country in an interview with CNN-Turk. He said in the interview that the alleged double agents were feeding Israel classified information about Iran's nuclear program. “The boss of the Iranian anti-Mossad intelligence agency was a Mossad agent,” he stated.

“Iran’s secret services had created a special unit to combat Mossad operating in Iran. It turns out the head of this unit was himself a Mossad agent, along with 20 other agents, who were responsible for multiple operations in Iran, including stealing nuclear documents and assassinating several Iranian nuclear scientists before fleeing to Israel,” CNN-Turk tweeted quoting Ahmadinejad.

The information was made public after Ahmadinejad announced he would not be running for president of Iran in June 2024. The previous report stated that just hours before the attack at Nasrallah's highly secure underground headquarters in Dahieh, a southern suburb of Beirut, the informant had alerted Israeli forces to his whereabouts.

The attack involved dropping six two-ton bombs, creating a massive 30-meter-deep crater and destroying two neighbouring buildings. There are reports that the explosion was audible as far away as downtown Beirut. With Nasrallah's passing, this attack is regarded as one of the biggest against Hezbollah since 2006 and deals a serious blow to the group.

After Hamas sent fighters into Israel on October 7, which ignited the Gaza War, Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging gunfire across the Lebanon border nearly every day. The kidnapping of about 250 individuals from Israel occurred nearly a year ago. Tuesday marked the start of what the Israeli military described as a "limited, localised" operation against southern Lebanon's Hezbollah targets, with "targeted ground raids" being conducted in villages near the Israeli border. It stated that there is an "immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel" from the targets.

On Tuesday, the Israeli military began what it called a “limited, localised” operation against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, carrying out “targeted ground raids” in villages close to the Israeli border. The targets, it said, pose an “immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel.”