Sandro Sana : 31 October 2025 09:07
Yossi Cohen, former director of the Mossad, has said publicly two things that usually remain locked away in a room without tape recorders.
First, Israel allegedly deployed a global sabotage and surveillance network over time by inserting tampered hardware into commercial devices used by its adversaries. We’re talking about radios, pagers, and “normal” communications equipment that can actually locate, listen, or explode. This infrastructure, he says, has been deployed “in every country you can imagine.” He said this in a recent interview, which was reported by outlets like Middle East Monitor and Israeli media , citing the podcast “The Brink.”
Second, Cohen himself is accused of participating in a campaign of pressure and intimidation against judges and officials of the international courts in The Hague, the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), to thwart investigations into possible Israeli war crimes. These allegations, published as early as 2024 by the Guardian, along with +972 Magazine and Local Call , allege personal surveillance of the Court’s prosecutors, collection of private information, and highly undiplomatic messages, including veiled threats.
Then there is another strong voice: Tamir Pardo, who was director of the Mossad before Cohen, defined these alleged techniques as “mafia-style,” therefore outside of what he considers acceptable for the Israeli secret service.
This scenario—physical sabotage through the supply chain and direct pressure on the international judiciary—isn’t folklore. It’s the way Israeli national security is portrayed in public today. And it concerns us more than we’d like to admit.
Cohen describes the technique, which he calls the “pager method,” as follows: intercept the hardware that an adversary will buy and use, modify it before delivery, return it “as new,” and keep it in the field as a remote weapon.
According to his version, this work began between 2002 and 2004, when he was leading Mossad special operations. The system was used against Hezbollah in 2006 and later became a stable operational model. Today, Cohen says, devices manipulated in this way are operational “in every country you can imagine.”
We’re not talking about malware planted on a corporate network. The concept here is much more straightforward: I take your communications equipment and turn it into a locator, a microphone, and, if necessary, a detonator.
This is supply chain interception applied to physical devices, not just software and firmware. It’s the perfect weapon for asymmetric conflict: I’ll let you use your infrastructure, but that infrastructure is actually mine. I’ll listen when I want. If necessary, I’ll eliminate you.
Anyone familiar with the history of Western intelligence services will be impressed. The United States (NSA/CIA) and the United Kingdom (GCHQ) have been accused and documented intercepting network equipment during international shipments to insert clandestine hardware components or manipulated firmware, then allowing them to arrive “intact” at the target. This was revealed in the Snowden leaks years ago and has never been seriously refuted on a technical level. The only difference is that they didn’t speak so openly in front of a microphone.
Cohen, yes. And that’s already a psychological operation: letting you know that it could have happened to you too.
Announcing to the world that “we’ve spread rigged hardware everywhere” doesn’t just intimidate Hezbollah or Hamas. It serves something else, much more subtle: it instills widespread paranoia in everyone else’s technology supply chains.
The indirect message to Europe is this: look at your tactical radios, your field networks, your commercial drones, your industrial sensors. How many of these devices are truly “clean”? How many may have been opened, modified, resealed, and shipped?
The goal: to force you to doubt your own hardware, which means spending money and political capital to double-check everything. It’s indirect economic sabotage. And it’s part of the game.
This is a key concept of 2025: war isn’t just shooting. It’s forcing the enemy to spend.
Let’s move on to the other piece, which is the most toxic from a diplomatic point of view.
According to an investigation published by the Guardian, Israel has waged a systematic campaign for years to weaken and intimidate the International Criminal Court (ICC) and, more generally, to limit the action of the international courts in The Hague on Israeli responsibility in conflicts.
The reconstruction goes like this: the Mossad monitored, spied on, and pressured ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, and subsequently other officials, to dissuade them from pursuing possible Israeli war crimes in the Occupied Territories. We’re talking about shadowing, personal and family profiling, the collection of potentially blackmail-proof material, and direct, no-nonsense messages.
In these reconstructions, Cohen is identified as the man tasked with “speaking” directly with the Court. “Speaking” here isn’t meant as a diplomatic channel. It’s meant as making it clear that certain investigations shouldn’t proceed.
Tamir Pardo, his predecessor at the head of the Mossad, commented clearly on these accusations: “Cosa Nostra-style” stuff, unacceptable for what he believed should be the operational scope of the service.
Translated without filters: if these reconstructions are correct, Israel didn’t limit itself to applying political pressure on international bodies. It treated the Court as a hostile target to be neutralized. This is a quantum leap. And everyone understood it.
Let’s add the two things together:
This is the operational paradigm emerging: technical intelligence + physical sabotage + aggressive lawfare. All together. And publicly declared.
There is no longer a separation between the battlefield, cyberspace, industrial logistics, and the Hague Tribunal. It’s the same story, with the same protagonists.
When Cohen says, “We’ve placed manipulated devices in every country you can imagine,” he’s not just saying “in Lebanon.” He’s saying everywhere. So, including European countries. Even in NATO contexts. Even in industrial and infrastructure sectors where dual-use, civil-military technology passes through.
This raises a critical issue for Europe: the security of our technological infrastructure is no longer just a matter of patches and antivirus software. It’s a matter of real control over the hardware supply chain. We’re talking about tactical radios, commercial drones, network equipment, industrial sensors, OT/SCADA components. All things we use every day in energy, transportation, telecommunications, and healthcare.
A blunt question: who can guarantee that what arrives in our home hasn’t already been touched by someone, somewhere, before arriving here?
Second point. If it’s true—and the investigations reveal it with an abundance of names and dates—that a national intelligence service is willing to put personal pressure on international magistrates, then we’re outside the realm of diplomatic normality. We’re in a world where international legality becomes another operational front. Whoever has the most leverage dictates the boundaries of what’s “acceptable.”
It’s 2025. Security is no longer an abstract discussion. It’s material power.
Cohen is now building a public profile: the man who protected Israel using all means. He’s normalizing a very clear message: supply chain sabotage, constant surveillance, surgical action on the ground, and direct pressure on those who attempt to characterize all this as a “war crime.”
Translated: modern warfare is no longer separated into “cyber,” “intelligence,” “diplomacy,” and “international law.” It is a single operational unit.
The real news isn’t that Israel does these things. Anyone who has followed the last twenty years of clandestine operations knows full well that all high-end players operate this way, from the United States to Russia, including China and Iran. The real news is that it’s now being said out loud, in front of cameras, as naturally as a product presentation.
When a former Mossad chief looks at you and says: we have modified devices “in every country you can imagine,” the message is the same.
It’s not a warning. It’s a caution.
Sandro Sana
