Israeli media are reporting that a special unit of security and intelligence agents has been set up to track down and eliminate the Hamas members responsible for the deadly October 7 attacks in southern Israel. The operation is reminiscent of the plot to find the Palestinian militants who murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Members of the NILI unit are said to include both Shin Bet and Mossad agents.
Israeli media have been reporting over the past week that Shin Bet (Israel’s internal security service) along with the Mossad intelligence service have set up a special unit to track down the Hamas members who organised the killing of more than 1,400 Israelis during the deadly October 7 attack. The unit is reportedly known as NILI – a Hebrew acronym for the Biblical phrase “Netzah Yisrael Lo Yeshaker,” or “The Eternal One of Israel will not lie”.
To date, neither NILI’s existence nor its activities have been confirmed by the Israeli government. But Ahron Bregman, an Israeli political scientist at King’s College London who spent six years in the Israeli army, is fairly confident the special unit is real.
“Shin Bet along with Mossad formed a special operations centre tasked with tracking down and killing members of Hamas that entered Israel and massacred Israelis on 7 October,” says Bregman. “I know from a reliable source that this forum already exists.”
The formation of such a unit would not be surprising, says Shahin Modarres, a specialist in Iran and Israeli intelligence at the International Team for the Study of Security Verona (ITSS).
“Mossad’s charter specifies that its missions include neutralising threats to Israel and exacting revenge,” he said. “In other words, tracking down Hamas fighters is perfectly within the remit of these spies.”
The perception that the October 7 assault was partly the result of an intelligence failure is all the more reason that Israel would launch this kind of operation, says Modarres; the failure left Shin Bet and Mossad with no choice but to try to redeem themselves.
