Israel’s Mossad obtained a rare photograph of Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughniyeh shortly before his assassination in Damascus in 2008, after agents managed to photograph him arriving in the Syrian capital with his wife and son, according to a book by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

At the time, Israeli intelligence did not know what Mughniyeh looked like. The photograph, which Olmert calls a “golden photograph,” not only gave Israeli intelligence its most up-to-date image of the elusive Hezbollah commander but also disproved reports that he had undergone plastic surgery to alter his appearance and evade Israeli and U.S. intelligence.

Mughniyeh, whom Israel described as “Hezbollah’s defense minister,” had not undergone such surgery, Olmert wrote in Arizona Kulana (“Arizona All of Us”), published by a publishing house affiliated with the Yedioth Ahronoth media group.

The book does not reveal how Mossad agents disguised themselves while photographing Mughniyeh. Olmert noted, however, that Mossad operatives had previously used glasses and other devices to photograph and document targets.

An accidental breakthrough

The discovery of Mughniyeh’s image appears to have been linked to another Israeli intelligence operation: the effort to track Syrian General Muhammad Suleiman, whom Israel regarded as the mastermind behind the Syrian nuclear reactor destroyed by Israeli aircraft in Deir al-Zour in 2007.

Mughniyeh was a friend of Suleiman and advised him on ways to conceal evidence of the nuclear facility, according to Olmert’s account. The book takes its title from the codename given to Israel’s operation to destroy the reactor.

Olmert said the discovery of the Syrian nuclear reactor itself had been unexpected and was ultimately triggered by the intuition of a Mossad trainee identified by the codename “Anat.”

During her training, Anat came across intelligence reports held by the agency and developed a theory that a Syrian nuclear facility existed. Mossad officers initially dismissed her suspicions, Olmert wrote, believing she “did not understand the rules of the game,” and she was reprimanded before eventually proving her theory.

That episode raises the possibility that the trail leading to Mughniyeh was itself the product of a complex intelligence operation built partly on a series of coincidences.

From photograph to assassination

According to Olmert’s account, Mossad and the CIA ultimately prepared the operation to kill Mughniyeh by rigging a Jeep parked near the apartment where he was staying in Damascus.

Olmert wrote that then-U.S. President George W. Bush, whom he admired for his willingness to make “difficult decisions,” gave him a specific instruction: “Kill Mughniyeh only, and do not kill anyone else.”

When Mughniyeh left the apartment that night, two Mossad officers positively identified him using the photograph obtained earlier.

The order to proceed was then issued from the Mossad command room, where CIA representatives were also present. The explosion killed Mughniyeh and his bodyguard.

Olmert did not detail the extent to which advanced surveillance technology was used to locate and track Mughniyeh. He noted that Israel’s aerial surveillance and satellite resources were heavily focused at the time on Syria and its nuclear program.

That focus came at the expense of efforts to locate Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been captured and was being held in Gaza, Olmert said, adding that Israel’s surveillance capabilities were not then as advanced as they are today.

Dagan’s “unfinished business”

Olmert also described a personal history between Mughniyeh and Meir Dagan, who headed Mossad at the time of the assassination.

Mughniyeh had been one of the guards of Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat in his youth. In the early 1980s, Dagan, then a colonel commanding Israel’s Lebanon Liaison Unit, arrested him.

Dagan later ordered Mughniyeh’s release because he believed he was only a “small fish,” according to Olmert.

Mughniyeh subsequently joined Hezbollah and rose to become one of the group’s most prominent military figures. Olmert described him as a “terrorist shark.” The United States eventually placed one of its largest-ever bounties on his capture, making him one of the world’s most wanted men.

Suleiman and Soleimani were also at the apartment

The operation took place after two other high-profile figures had visited Mughniyeh’s apartment.

Syrian General Muhammad Suleiman and Qassem Soleimani, then commander of Iran’s Quds Force, arrived there only hours before Mughniyeh was killed.

Neither man was targeted, however, because Israel was adhering to Bush’s instruction that Mughniyeh alone should be killed, Olmert wrote.

Olmert said he was aboard a plane returning from a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel when the operation took place. Had he been able to speak directly with Bush, he said, he believed he could have persuaded the U.S. president at the time to approve operations against Suleiman and Soleimani as well.

Suleiman was killed several months later by Israeli naval commandos in the Syrian coastal city of Tartus, according to Olmert. Soleimani was later killed by the United States in a 2020 drone strike in Baghdad.

The woman behind the breakthrough

Olmert’s account also leaves open the possibility that “Anat,” the Mossad operative whose intuition helped expose the Syrian nuclear reactor, played a role in the chain of intelligence work that eventually led to Mughniyeh’s photograph and the tracking of his movements before his death.

Her story, as portrayed by Olmert, illustrates how intelligence breakthroughs can emerge from information initially dismissed by senior officers.

The photograph that Mossad obtained in Damascus ultimately became a crucial tool in identifying Mughniyeh at the moment Israel carried out the operation that killed him, bringing together a trail of intelligence work that Olmert portrays as involving coincidence, human intuition and extensive surveillance.