IDF: Hezbollah naval operative captured last year was key to group’s ‘secret maritime file’

The IDF reveals 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, who, according to the military, 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 military publishes footage of his interrogation.

#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

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, says.

Adraee says 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.”

According to Adraee, during his interrogation, Amhaz revealed that he held a key role in Hezbollah’s “secret maritime file” and provided sensitive intelligence about the unit, “which is considered one of Hezbollah’s most sensitive and secret projects, focused on establishing an organized infrastructure for maritime terror activities under a civilian cover, intending to strike Israeli and international targets.”

He says 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 says 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.