How Mossad EXECUTED a Hamas' Terrorist by Blowing His Head With a Call

On January 5, 1996, in Gaza City, Yahya Ayyash, known as "The Engineer"—the brilliant Hamas bomb maker responsible for a campaign of deadly bombings—was eliminated by a device disguised as a mobile phone. After nearly four years as the most wanted man in the Middle East, Ayyash's extraordinary operational security was finally broken through his greatest vulnerability: his family. Mossad exploited this by recruiting a debt-ridden childhood friend, Kamal Hamad, to deliver the lethal device as a gift.
The Mossad technical division spent weeks developing the weapon: a bulky cellular phone containing fifty grams of RDX high explosive. The operation’s innovation lay in its triggering mechanism: the detonator was programmed with voice recognition technology to only activate when Ayyash spoke a specific word or phrase, ensuring only the intended target was eliminated. Ayyash, suspicious of electronic devices, thoroughly inspected the phone but failed to detect the minuscule charge and the sophisticated, hidden circuitry.
When Ayyash answered the phone in a safe house in Beit Lahia and spoke the key word to confirm his identity to a relative on the line, the small charge detonated against the side of his head, eliminating him instantly. This operation became a legendary case study in modern espionage, demonstrating the strategic use of technical innovation combined with human intelligence and psychological manipulation, turning an ordinary object—a phone—into a precise, targeted weapon.