The Israeli Mossad appears to have breached Lebanon in the wake of its economic and financial collapse that has weakened state institutions and its security services.

In the past two years, the Mossad has been able to penetrate Hezbollah’s circles, and this has led to the assassination of dozens of field commanders and members since the beginning of the clashes in southern Lebanon on Oct. 8.

The murder of Mohammad Srour in Beit Meri in Lebanon’s northern Metn area has led to speculation that he may have been killed by Israeli intelligence, a theory that was consolidated by the Israeli press.

Lebanese judicial sources backed this view by pointing to his role in transferring money from Iran to Hezbollah and the Hamas movement in Lebanon, and the fact that he is on the US sanctions list.

Sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the judicial and security investigations put forward multiple scenarios for his assassination, noting that they were looking for evidence to confirm whether external parties were behind the crime.

Former Minister Rashid Derbas said the Beit Meri operation bore the hallmarks of the Mossad, stressing that any crime that occurs in Lebanon is the “natural result of the collapse of the state and its structure.”

“No party, entity, or militia can replace the state, no matter how strong it is,” Derbas said, adding that the disintegration of the state is due to “the duality of power and Hezbollah’s control over it.”

The Information Division of the Internal Security Forces has been able, in the past two years, to arrest around 20 agents working for Israel, including people who had joined Hezbollah.

The investigations revealed that the Mossad “was luring these people with money, communicating with them through an unmonitored network, holding meetings with them in countries such as Türkiye, Greece, Cyprus, and Africa, and assigning them security tasks.”

The former head of the military court, Brigadier General Khalil Ibrahim, who previously tried hundreds of these agents, noted that Mossad’s security activity in Lebanon never stopped, but its decline for a period was due to the vigilance of the security services and their ability to dismantle dozens of networks.

He explained that Israel “has espionage networks that are active in a country with fragile security,” stressing that Lebanon’s economic crisis has had negative repercussions on the military and security institutions and their technical, operational, and intelligence capabilities.