On that day, the buzzing of the Israeli drone was incessant, and every time Ahmad Turmus looked up, it seemed to be hovering over him like a patient bird of prey.
So when his phone rang on a Monday afternoon in February, during a visit to relatives, Ahmad Turmus was not surprised to learn that the caller with an Arab accent was an Israeli military officer.
The question, however, stunned him. “Ahmad, do you want to die with those around you or alone?” According to his family members, he only replied with one word before hanging up: “Alone.”
The targeting of this man once again proves that the Israeli army excels in intelligence warfare, in which Hezbollah seems to be lacking.
Access to all movements in real time
Since the spectacular pager attack in September 2024 – when Israel remotely triggered explosives hidden in pagers of Hezbollah members – soldiers, support staff, field commanders, faction leaders, and even a respected general [Hassan Nasrallah, charismatic Hezbollah leader assassinated in 2024] have been taken down by an AI-driven targeting system.
This system, which combines data from phones, security and traffic cameras, Wi-Fi signals, drones, government databases, and even social networks, has given Israel an almost omniscient ability to track all movements of Hezbollah leaders.
Ahmad Turmus, 62, was a liaison agent between Hezbollah and the residents of Talloussah, a small village less than 5 kilometers from the Israeli border.
His family describes him as a former fighter of the Islamist paramilitary group who, as he aged, took on an administrative role. On the other hand, Israel claims he worked on “military and financial issues […] to rebuild Hezbollah’s terrorist infrastructure.”
According to an AI specialist who worked for defense companies until he became concerned about the systems’ use in Gaza, drones with installed cameras likely filmed and recorded his face, vehicle make and plate, and his home.
The drones may have used transmitter-receiver simulators known as “stingrays” to imitate cell towers and establish a phone connection, providing access not only to Turmus’ data but also to all his movements in real time. Even by changing SIM cards, Ahmad Turmus would have been tracked, said the anonymous AI expert.
“It’s a huge data vacuum: metadata from the phone, location, SIM card replacement, app usage, social media interactions, sometimes even banking data or facial recognition. A large amount of data is collected through commercial sites, mobile networks, allied intelligence services, or spies on the ground,” outlined the AI specialist.
Companies involved in the process
Once all the data is collected, software like Maven, from [surveillance technology company] Palantir, harmonizes, classifies, and prioritizes it, then connects it to identities associated with devices or accounts. Palantir has openly discussed its work with the Israeli military.
Paved vehicle hit by an Israeli strike on the highway linking Beirut to Saïda (south Lebanon), May 9, 2026. – PHOTO / FADEL ITANI / AFP
Therefore, AI can reconstruct an individual’s activity timeline and map their network of relationships.
Ahmad Turmus could have also been targeted: one of his sons was a Hezbollah fighter, killed in early 2024, and another was injured in the pager explosions.
Tracking Turmus was made easier by deep and multifaceted Israeli intelligence infiltration in Lebanon, according to retired General Mounir Shehadeh, former Lebanese government coordinator to the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.
For twenty years, Israelis have had access to most of the country’s data infrastructure, such as mobile user information or vehicle records. They’ve also hacked Hezbollah’s land network and communication system, he claimed. “These elements allowed Israel to create a precise target list that includes field commanders and top leaders,” summarized Mounir Shehadeh.
Software not without margin of error
This is where AI comes into play. By quickly analyzing terabytes of data, it examines individual behaviors, compares them to those of a perceived threat, or someone located in flagged areas, and detects deviations from usual trajectories. All this information is used to create what is known as a “threat profile.”
According to an Israeli colonel, this results in a system capable of rapidly pinpointing targets.
“The system does in a few seconds what would have previously required hundreds of investigators and several weeks of work,” explained the director of the Israeli army’s AI Intelligence Center, known only as “Colonel Yoav.”
However, the AI specialist raises a concern: that these systems use only data, not logic, to determine a person’s threat level. If the information is incorrect, they continue to repeat the same errors, but “faster and with more confidence.”
These software programs pose another problem as they assess the probability of an individual being a fighter based solely on tracking daily routine activities, which can lead to potential false positives, pointed out Vasja Badalic, a professor at the Institute of Criminology in Slovenia.
“Family members, or those involved in propaganda or finances, are not fighters but the machine categorizes them as such because they have the same communication patterns,” continued Vasja Badalic.
“We can’t do anything about it”
Despite Israeli dominance in Lebanon, some signs indicate that Hezbollah is adapting to Israeli AI surveillance.
Since the conflict began, the Shiite militia has returned to guerrilla tactics by reducing unit size and decentralizing its structure. It has also adopted more secure means of communication, albeit less convenient, according to retired General Mounir Shehadeh.
The element that caused Ahmad Turmus to be moved from the surveillance list to the target list was not clearly determined.
On February 15, the day before his assassination, he turned off his phone and left it at home to attend a municipal meeting in a neighboring village the next day. The Israeli call came shortly after he returned home to Talloussah and turned his phone back on.
Family members recounted that when he hung up, his face had turned pale. He told them that the Israelis were after him and asked them to leave the house to let him die alone. They begged him to try to escape, to disguise himself to leave.
But Ahmad Turmus refused. He walked towards the door. “They know my face. We can’t do anything about it,” he said. His wife arrived as he left, but he didn’t tell her anything, so she wouldn’t try to stop him.
He got into his car, started the engine, and drove away. Less than thirty seconds later, two missiles struck his car.
