Israel Provided Critical Intelligence That Allowed The U.S. To Track The Movements Of Soliemani

Israel’s former military intelligence chief says the country was involved in the American airstrike that killed Iranian Quds Force commander, Major General Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. It was the first public acknowledgment of Israel’s role in the operation.

Soleimani headed the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force and helped orchestrate Iran’s involvement with paramilitary groups abroad, and was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American servicemen and women. He was killed in a U.S. drone strike, shortly after arriving at the airport in Baghdad on January 3, 2020, after violence escalated between Iran’s proxy militias and the U.S. military. After Soleimani gave the green light for the militias to attack the U.S. Embassy, he was targeted and killed. 

Retired Major General G Tamir Hayman said in an interview with Malam magazine which is published by the Israeli Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center that “Soleimani’s assassination is an achievement, since our main enemy, in my eyes, are the Iranians. 

“Two significant and important assassinations can be noted in my term,” he noted with Soleimani’s assassination being the first and the other was the assassination of Islamic Jihad leader Baha Abu al-Ata in the Gaza Strip in 2019 in Operation Black Belt. al-Ata was in the midst of planning attacks against Israeli civilians and the military when he was killed in an Israeli attack.