It’s pretty rare to see the work of a foreign spy agency leading international headlines, but that’s exactly what happened last week when thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah blew up in 2 waves of timed explosions. Experts reckon it’s the work of Israel’s spy agency, Mossad, which has quite a history of covert operations around the world. So in this Squiz Shortcut, we’ll look at what Mossad is, its notorious past, and why it’s changed the way it operates.

Squiz recommends:

Listening: An episode of the ABC’s If You’re Listening podcast with Matt Bevan, called The Extraordinary Assassination of Ismail Haniyeh… If You’re Listening isn’t your average news pod. It’s Matt’s witty, short-form take on current affairs, and as the title suggests, this ep looks at the probable involvement of Israel in the death of Ismail Haniyeh, and how Mossad has changed the way it operates over the past 15 years. 

Watching: The movie Munich starring Eric Bana and Daniel Craig deals with the assassination plot to track down the killers of the 11 Israeli athletes murdered at the 1972 Munich Olympics, told from the perspective of a Mossad agent. Find it on Netflix or Stan.

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