A screenshot of a video posted on Avichay Adraee's X account.
BEIRUT — As ground fighting between Israel and Hezbollah intensifies, the Israeli army’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee once again urged people to contact the Israeli foreign intelligence service directly, through the Mossad's official Facebook page, claiming to have received messages from concerned Lebanese.
"I understand the difficult situation Lebanese people are going through because of Hezbollah. I understand their fear in the face of the unknown,” he claimed in a video posted on X on Sunday. “I’ve constantly and increasingly been receiving messages from southern citizens expressing their fear over the past few weeks, including those who claim to be Hezbollah activists. They speak of fear, indignation, and anger amid what is happening in Lebanon, asking me to communicate with Israeli parties."
In recent weeks, amid the Israeli ground offensive, videos have surfaced of Israeli soldiers burning the Lebanese flag, mocking the destruction of Lebanese homes, and cheering the demolition of entire neighborhoods of southern villages.
"The least I can do is redirect you to the official Mossad Facebook page," the spokesperson said, urging interested parties to make sure they connect to "the right address" to communicate with "a reliable site."
Ever since Hezbollah declared a support front for Gaza from southern Lebanon on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after Hamas attacked southern Israel, the southern Lebanese villages have been under relentless Israeli attack. The Israeli escalation on Sept. 23 saw thousands of sites bombed in a massive aerial onslaught across southern Lebanon, the Bekaa, and Beirut’s southern suburbs. Over 1.4 million people were forced from their homes by Israeli aggression and Israel is leveling entire villages in the South.
The Mossad is also widely believed to be responsible for rigging walkie-talkies and pagers belonging to Hezbollah and causing them to simultaneously explode, wounding thousands of people across Lebanon.
On Sunday, two Israeli attacks targeted the heart of Beirut. The first strike targeted the head of Hezbollah’s media office, Mohammad Afif, in Ras al-Nabaa, whereas the second targeted the mixed neighborhood of Mar Elias, killed least four people and wounding 22, according to the official National News Agency (NNA).
The latest figures published by the Ministry of Health on Sunday indicate that the conflict has already killed 3,481 people and wounded 14,786.
‘Join us’: A call from the Mossad to the Lebanese people
Two days earlier, on Nov. 15, the Mossad posted a recruitment announcement on Facebook addressed to the Lebanese people. "Join us today!" said the post in Arabic, accompanied by an image showing demonstrators with Lebanese flags.
"We want to work together. Contact us, for your own good and that of your family. Don't stand alone, behind the people!" he added, asking those interested not to respond on Facebook but to send a private message to the Israeli intelligence services. "The Mossad" Facebook page, created in 2018 but active since 2024, has now 26,000 followers.
This is not Israel’s first attempt to recruit Lebanese.Back in June, Israel's foreign intelligence service used ads on the same Facebook page to ask people in Lebanon to contact its services. "Contact us, we're ready to listen," was Mossad's message to the Lebanese people.
At the time, Mohammad Najem, Executive Director of SMEX, a Lebanese NGO that defends human rights in digital spaces, indicated that this page belonged "in one way or another to the Israeli intelligence services," even though it is not mentioned on the organization's official website. Najem believed that page administrators were based in Israel.