Senior Analyst Amit Segal explained today to Channel 12 News why Operation Summit Of Fire is attributed to the ISA, instead of the Mossad - despite the operation having been carried out well beyond the usual borders of the ISA's operational area.
"None of the announcements - not by the Prime Minister, the Defense Minister, the IDF - ever mentioned the Mossad," he began. "They treated Qatar like another terrorist hideout in Shechem. This makes no sense - the Mossad is the one responsible for tracking Hamas outside of Israel, and the ISA certainly does not collect the information on them needed for such a strike."
In a similar manner, several official statements so far were issued without specifying that the attack was carried out in Qatar.
Segal presented two theories to explain the phenomenon. "The Mossad has long touted good relations with the Qataris, even before David Barnea took office. They simply didn't want to ruin that rapport."
"The other option is that they didn't want the Mossad agents to be involved in the attack at all - after all, they were the ones who worked so hard in the negotiations. They actually opposed the strike, and wanted to wait until Trump's ultimatum expired."