IDF: Hezbollah operative nabbed last year was key to group’s ‘secret maritime file’
Military says Imad Amhaz was member of Hezbollah’s coast-to-sea missile unit, involved in advancing classified project directed by former terror chief Nasrallah
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleEmanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
The Israel Defense Forces on Friday revealed new information on a raid carried out by naval commandos last year, during which a “significant” Hezbollah operative was nabbed.
On November 1, 2024, members of the Israeli Navy’s elite Shayetet 13 unit arrived from the sea and raided a chalet on the coast of Batroun, south of Tripoli — some 140 kilometers (87 miles) north of Israel’s maritime border with Lebanon.
The commandos captured Imad Amhaz, whom the military said on Friday was “one of the most significant figures in Hezbollah’s secret maritime file and a member of the coast-to-sea missile unit (7900).”
In an unusual move, the IDF published footage of his interrogation.
As part of his role in the coast-to-sea missile unit, Amhaz “received military training in Iran and Lebanon and gained extensive maritime expertise and experience for the purpose of carrying out maritime terror attacks,” the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, Col. Avichay Adraee, said on X.
Adraee said that Amhaz had trained at a civilian Lebanese maritime institute, “which constitutes another example of Hezbollah’s cynical exploitation of Lebanese civilian institutions to advance its terror activities.”
#عاجل ????جيش الدفاع يكشف: الملف البحري السري لحزب الله الإرهابي – بنية تحتية إرهابية بستار مدني بتوجيه مباشر من المدعو حسن نصرالله
????يكشف جيش الدفاع النقاب انه قبل نحو عام انطلق مقاتلي وحدة 13 للكوماندوز البحري لتنفيذ عملية "وراء الظهر" في بلدة البترون شمال لبنان، على بعد حوالي… pic.twitter.com/A5T7LPL6mS
— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) December 19, 2025
According to Adraee, Amhaz told interrogators he held a key role in Hezbollah’s “secret maritime file” and provided sensitive intelligence on the unit, described as one of the group’s most secret projects, using civilian cover to build maritime terror infrastructure targeting Israeli and international targets.
He said that the project was directed by Hassan Nasrallah, the terror group’s former leader, and Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s former military chief — both of whom were killed by Israel — as well as Ali Abd al-Hassan Nour al-Din, “head of the secret maritime file.”
Adraee said the IDF was able to disrupt Hezbollah’s progress in advancing the secret maritime file “at a critical point in time,” as a result of the elimination of the terror group’s leadership and the information provided by Amhaz in his interrogation.
Security camera footage posted to social media shows Israeli naval commandos raiding Batroun, northern Lebanon, November 1, 2024. (X; used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)
The commando raid took place at the height of an Israeli ground offensive against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, several weeks before a ceasefire between Israel and the terror group, which mostly brought a halt to more than a year of hostilities.
Since the ceasefire, the IDF said it has killed over 380 Hezbollah operatives and members of allied terror groups in strikes, hit hundreds of Hezbollah sites, and conducted over 1,200 raids and other small operations in southern Lebanon — saying it has been operating against Hezbollah violations of the truce.
Weakened by the war and still facing regular Israeli strikes, Hezbollah is under internal and international pressure to hand over its weapons, with the Lebanese army having drawn up a plan to disarm it.
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