A 16-man force from the Israeli Navy’s special operation unit, Shayetet 13, on a mission in South Lebanon in 1997, stumbled into a deadly ambush by Hezbollah.

The force made it to the village of Kfour and planted explosives in a wall outside the home of Hussein Qassir, a local Islamic Resistance commander.

In the morning Islamic Resistance patrols searched the village for road-side bombs left by the Israelis.

When a group of Lebanese fighters passed by the wall, the explosives were detonated by a signal from an Israeli UAV drone.

Hussein Qassir and Sheikh Taysir Badran, the Islamic Resistance commander in the nearby town of Nabatiya, and three other Hezbollah combatants were killed.

They had, however, no indication of when Israel would strike, which was a problem because during the daytime the citrus groves were tended to by the local farmers.

Another problem was that the area around Ansariya was a weak spot for Hezbollah and dominated by AMAL, a rival, but by then allied, Shiite movement.

[8] In the evening of 4 September 1997, a force of 16 commandos from the Israeli Navy’s special operations unit Shayetet 13 walked ashore on an uninhabited stretch of the south Lebanese coastline.

The unit crossed the coastal road and walked through the plantations, shadowed by Israeli drones overhead, which were relaying the images to the IDF command.

The Sayeret Matkal commandos formed a defensive perimeter while the Unit 669 team evacuated the dead and wounded IDF soldiers.

Captain Dagesh Maher, a Druze military doctor from the rescue team was mortally wounded by shrapnel from a mortar shell.

But we can’t disclose that, because that won’t be in the resistance’s best interest.” [14] At first the focus was about a possible double agent, giving away the Israeli plans to Hezbollah.

[15] Bergman also claims that double agents in the SLA intelligence outfit played a role in the affair.

[16] In August 2010 Nasrallah revealed that Hezbollah had long been able to download the videos taken by Israeli drones overflying Lebanon.

Israeli drones returned several times to the area and seemed to be following a path from the beach, through the plantations to a place north of Ansariya.

The IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi appointed a fourth commission of inquiry, headed by Col.

Hezbollah was apparently able to follow the Israeli troop movements on the ground, in real time, during the whole operation and the rescue effort.

[18] From Shayetet 13 From Rescue Unit 669 Blanford, Nicholas, Warriors of God, Inside Hezbollah’s Thirty-Year Struggle Against Israel, New York, 2011 Bergman, Ronen, RISE AND KILL FIRST, The secret history of Israel's targeted assassinations, Random house, New York, 2018