Mina, Saudi Arabia, the day of stoning.
Over two million pilgrims converge on a multi-level bridge structure called Jamarat, where they will perform one of Islam’s most sacred rituals, throwing stones at three pillars representing the devil.
The heat is suffocating, 42° C in the shade, but there is no shade here.
Only an ocean of humanity dressed in white Iram garments moving like a single organism toward the concrete pillars.
The noise is overwhelming.
Prayers shouted in dozens of languages.
Children crying.
The elderly gasping for air.
The crush of bodies so intense that feet no longer touch the ground.
And people are carried forward by the pressure of the crowd behind them.
Four men move through this chaos with deliberate precision.
They wear the same white garments as everyone else.
They carry the same small bags of pebbles collected earlier at Muzalifa.
They chant the same prayers.
But their eyes never stop scanning, searching, calculating distances and angles through the shifting mass of humanity.
20 m ahead, visible for only seconds at a time between the bobbing heads and raised arms, walks their target.
Fared Almadi, 41 years old, is sweating through his Iram.
One hand gripping his bag of stones, the other wiping his face.
He has no idea that the men behind him have traveled 3,000 km through Saudi Arabia, maintaining cover every second of every day, waiting for exactly this moment.
The moment when chaos provides opportunity.
When the sacred becomes profane.
When murder can hide behind the mask of accident.
One of the four men operating under the name Ridan Kusuma signals with a subtle gesture.
His right hand touching his left shoulder as if adjusting his Iram.
The others see it.
They understand.
The window is closing.
In less than 2 minutes, the target will reach the pillars and throw his stones.
The ritual will be complete.
He will leave, disappearing back into the enormous encampment of white tents that stretches across Mina’s valley like a city of ghosts.
If they lose him here, the operation fails.
6 months of planning, millions in resources, the audacity of infiltrating one of Islam’s holiest events.
All of it meaningless unless they act now.
The crowd surges forward, bodies pressed together.
Someone screams as they stumble.
The four men use the momentum, pushing closer to their target, closing the distance meter by meter.
Almati is now 15 m away, then 12, then 10.
He is alone.
For the first time in three days, the teenage boy who has been beside him constantly is not there, separated by the crowd’s inexurable flow.
This is the moment they have been waiting for.
The moment that justifies every risk they have taken.
The moment when one of Hamas’s most dangerous minds will die, surrounded by believers who will never know that assassins walked among them.
But before we understand how this moment arrived, before we witness what happens in the next 90 seconds, we need to go back back to where this operation began.
In a conference room in Tel Aviv, where Israeli intelligence officers debated whether it was even possible to kill a man in the middle of the largest religious gathering on Earth.
If you want to see more stories like this about secret operations, unsolved cases, and the hidden wars that shape our world, subscribe to this channel because what you are about to hear is just one of many operations that governments will never officially acknowledge.
Tel Aviv, Israel, 7 months earlier.
The Mossad headquarters building sits behind multiple security perimeters in the Gilote area north of the city.
Inside a classified briefing room on the fourth floor, eight officers sit around a table covered with photographs, surveillance reports, and technical documents.
The subject of their meeting is displayed on a large screen.
Fared Almadi, a name most people have never heard, but one that Israeli intelligence has been tracking for 4 years.
The photographs show a man of average height and build, unremarkable in appearance, the kind of person who disappears in crowds.
which is exactly what makes him dangerous.
Almadi is not a fighter.
He has never fired a weapon in combat.
He has never led a military cell or planned an armed operation.
But Israeli intelligence estimates he is responsible for more Israeli deaths than any active Hamas operative except the organization’s top military commander.
Because Almadi is a bomb maker.
Not just any bomb maker, but an engineer who has solved problems that stumped other technicians.
His specialty is detonators, the small electronic devices that transform inert explosives into weapons.
For years, Hamas bomb makers struggled with a fundamental challenge.
How to create detonators that Israeli security forces could not detect.
Metal detectors at checkpoints caught traditional electronic detonators.
X-ray machines identified unusual wire configurations.
Bomb sniffing dogs detected chemical signatures and circuit boards.
Israeli countermeasures were sophisticated, constantly evolving, forcing Hamas technicians to innovate or watch their carefully constructed devices get discovered before they could be deployed.
Almadi changed the equation.
In 2001, he developed a detonator using components that appeared completely innocuous when scanned.
The circuit boards came from children’s toys.
The wiring was scavenged from household appliances.
The trigger mechanism used parts from mobile phones so common that security forces saw hundreds passed through checkpoints daily.
The genius was in the assembly.
How components that individually meant nothing became lethal when combined by someone who understood electronics at a level few Hamas operatives possessed.
Israeli intelligence first became aware of Almadi after a suicide bombing at a Netanya hotel during Passover 2002.
30 people died.
Over 140 were wounded.
When Shinbet analyzed the recovered bomb fragments, they found a detonator unlike any they had seen before.
Sophisticated, reliable, nearly impossible to detect with standard security measures.
Over the next two years, detonators matching this design appeared in seven more attacks.
Each time they functioned perfectly.
Each time they evaded Israeli security.
Each time people died.
Msad traced the design to workshops in Gaza City, specifically to a small electronics repair shop operated by a man who lived quietly with his wife and three children, who attended mosque regularly, but not obsessively, who had no arrest record and no known affiliation with Hamas military cells.
Fared Almadi looked like a civilian.
He acted like a civilian, but Israeli intelligence knew better.
Surveillance teams photographed Hamas operatives visiting his shop late at night.
Electronic intercepts caught coded references to technical consultations.
And most damning, forensic analysis of bomb components recovered from attack sites matched tools and materials found in Almadi’s workshop during a brief Israeli incursion into Gaza.
The problem was eliminating him.
In Gaza, Almadi lived carefully.
He varied his roots.
He avoided patterns.
He never traveled alone, always surrounded by Hamas security personnel who understood Israeli tactics and watched for surveillance.
Three times Israeli forces planned targeted strikes against his vehicle, commando raids on his home, even a proposed operation to poison his food supply.
Each time the operation was called off, too many civilians nearby, too high a risk of collateral damage, too uncertain about his exact location at the critical moment.
So when a MSAD signals intelligence unit intercepted communications indicating that Almadi had registered for Hajj through an Indonesian tour company, the information reached the Cesaria unit within hours.
Cesaria is MSAD’s specialized department for targeted killings, an organization that operates in the shadows, even within Israel’s intelligence community.
Officers who work in Cesaria do not exist in official records.
Their operations are never acknowledged.
Their successes are celebrated privately, their failures buried in classified archives.
The officers in that Tel Aviv conference room understood what they were being asked to consider.
The Hajj is one of Islam’s five pillars, a religious obligation that every Muslim who can afford it must fulfill at least once in their lifetime.
Each year, over 2 million pilgrims converge on Mecca and the surrounding area, creating the largest regular human gathering on Earth.
Saudi security forces deploy tens of thousands of personnel.
Surveillance cameras blanket the holy sites.
Checkpoints control access to restricted areas.
The Saudi government stakes its legitimacy on protecting pilgrims.
And any security incident during Hajj creates political repercussions that echo across the Muslim world.
Killing someone in the middle of Hajj was not just operationally difficult.
It was culturally explosive.
If the operation was discovered, if Saudi authorities identified Israeli agents operating in Mecca, the diplomatic consequences would be catastrophic.
But against these risks, Israeli intelligence weighed the certainty of future attacks if Almati continued his work.
the photographs of victims from his bombs, the intelligence reports describing new detonator designs under development, the strategic calculation that some operations justify extraordinary risks because the alternative is unacceptable.
The decision came from the prime minister’s office after 3 days of deliberation.
The operation was authorized.
Cesaria was instructed to develop a plan and four officers were selected for what would become one of the most audacious operations in MSAD’s history.
The team leader assigned the cover identity Ridan Kusuma was 43 years old, a veteran of operations in Beirut and Damascus.
He spoke Arabic with a Lebanese accent and Indonesian with the Javanese dialect common in Jakarta.
The second operative traveling as Ahmad Setawan was 38, a specialist in close quarters combat.
The third using the name Booty Santoso was 41, a communications expert.
The fourth, known as Hassan Wajaya, was 39, a surveillance specialist trained in observing targets in crowded environments.
Their preparation began immediately.
Four months before Hajj, they traveled to Indonesia, establishing their cover identities through a network of helpers who assist MSAD operations worldwide.
In Jakarta, they rented apartments in middle-class neighborhoods.
They registered with local mosques.
They attended Friday prayers.
They learned to navigate Indonesian bureaucracy, obtaining identity documents that would withstand scrutiny from Saudi immigration officials.
The most intensive training focused on Islamic rituals.
The Hajj is not simply a journey to Mecca.
It is a precisely choreographed series of religious rights performed over 5 days, each with specific prayers, movements, and traditions practiced for over a thousand years.
They worked with an Indonesian consultant who had performed Hajj three times.
He taught them the prayers in Arabic, correcting pronunciation until they could recite verses without hesitation.
He demonstrated the proper way to perform ablutions before prayer, to stand during congregational worship, to bow and prostrate with the rhythm that Muslims learn from childhood.
He explained the significance of each ritual.
The circumambulation of the Cabba, the running between the hills of Sappa and Marwa, the standing at Mount Arafat, the stoning of the pillars at Mina.
The operatives practiced these rituals until they became automatic.
They prayed five times daily, building muscle memory that would serve them when surrounded by actual pilgrims who would notice any deviation from proper practice.
They learned to sit cross-legged for extended periods, to eat with their right hands only, to perform dozens of small cultural behaviors that mark someone as a practicing Muslim.
The psychological preparation was equally important.
They underwent sessions with Mossad psychologists who specialized in deep cover work.
They discussed the moral dimensions of killing someone during a religious pilgrimage.
They practiced maintaining cover under stress, learning to control physiological responses when lying to keep facial expressions neutral when challenged.
In March, they registered for Hajj through Mina Tours, a legitimate Indonesian tour company that organized annual pilgrimages.
The company’s package included roundtrip flights from Jakarta to Jedha, ground transportation within Saudi Arabia, accommodation in Mecca and Medina, and guides who would lead the group through Haj’s rituals.
Mossad chose Minaours because intelligence indicated that Fared Almadi had also registered through this company.
Hamas was known to use Indonesian tour operators, believing the large Indonesian contingent, over 200,000 pilgrims annually, provided cover against Israeli surveillance.
What Hamas did not know was that MSAD had penetrated Minur’s registration system, gaining access to passenger lists weeks before the Saudi government received them.
When Almadi’s name appeared using a false Indonesian identity, but confirmed through facial recognition, Cesaria officers knew they had their opportunity.
The operation’s timeline was now fixed.
Almati would travel with Minur’s group 17, a bus carrying 48 pilgrims.
The four operatives registered for the same group, ensuring they would travel the same route, stay in the same accommodations, and participate in the same rituals as their target.
In late May, they departed Jakarta on separate flights, gathering in Jedha, where Mina Tours had arranged group check-in at King Abdulaziz International Airport.
The airport was chaos.
Tens of thousands of pilgrims arriving from across the world.
Lines stretching hundreds of meters as Saudi immigration officials processed passports and Hajj permits.
The four operatives stood in different lines, not acknowledging each other, maintaining the cover that they were strangers traveling with the same tour group.
When Ridan reached the immigration counter, he handed over his Indonesian passport and Hajj permit.
The officer scanned the documents and checked them against a database.
10 seconds felt like 10 minutes.
Then the officer stamped the passport and waved him through.
Outside the terminal, Mina Tour’s representatives held signs directing pilgrims to designated buses.
The operatives boarded bus number 17, finding seats scattered throughout the vehicle.
Ridan sat near the front.
Ahmad took a middle seat on the right side.
Booty positioned himself near the back.
Hassan sat across the aisle from Ahmad.
They did not look at each other.
They did not speak.
They waited.
Other pilgrims boarded, mostly Indonesian families, some elderly couples, a few young men traveling alone.
The bus filled slowly, seats claimed by people excited about the journey ahead, talking about their hopes for Hajj, their prayers for forgiveness, their gratitude for the opportunity.
The operatives listened, maintaining neutral expressions, occasionally nodding politely when other passengers spoke to them, but not initiating conversations.
They were playing the role of quiet, reflective pilgrims, people too overwhelmed by the spiritual significance of the journey to engage in casual chatter.
40 minutes after boarding began, a man appeared at the bus door accompanied by a teenage boy.
The man was stocky with a short beard and glasses, wearing a simple white t-shirt and pants.
The boy was thin, nervouslooking, perhaps 14 or 15 years old, clearly uncomfortable with the crowds and noise.
The man found two empty seats in the third row, and sat down, the boy beside him.
Ridan recognized him instantly from the photographs studied during months of preparation.
Fared Almadi, bomb maker for Hamas, responsible for dozens of Israeli deaths, had just sat down 10 meters away.
The operation was now active.
But there was a problem, a significant problem that had not appeared in any intelligence briefing or operational planning session.
The teenage boy sitting beside Almadi was not supposed to be there.
Intelligence briefings had mentioned nothing about a companion.
Surveillance reports from Gaza showed Almadi moving alone or with Hamas security.
Intercepted communications indicated a single traveler.
Now sitting beside him was a teenager who could not be a bodyguard.
The boy looked around with wide eyes, overwhelmed, clutching a small backpack.
Almati spoke to him quietly, a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
The gesture was protective, almost paternal.
Ridan kept his face neutral, but his mind raced through operational implications.
Killing Almadi in front of a child was not just morally complicated.
It was strategically disastrous.
If the boy witnessed the assassination, the operation would be exposed.
Saudi authorities would investigate.
The boy’s testimony would unravel cover identities that had taken months to construct.
Worse, if the boy was killed alongside Almadi, the international response would be catastrophic.
The propaganda value to Hamas would be incalculable.
This changed everything.
The bus engine started.
The driver announced they would depart for Medina, a 6-hour journey covering over 400 km.
Ridan glanced back subtly, catching Ahmad’s eye.
They both understood the complication.
They would adapt.
Inside, pilgrims settled for the long drive.
Some dozed, others talked quietly.
The Indonesian tour guide, Ibuari, explained the schedule.
Two days in Medina, visiting holy sites, then Mecca for the main Hajj rituals.
Almadi and the boy sat quietly.
The boys stared at the desert passing outside.
Almadi pulled out a book of Arabic prayers and began reading silently.
The operatives used the journey to observe.
They noted Almadi’s behaviors, movements, interactions.
They watched how he always chose seats with a view of entrances, old surveillance habits.
He kept his small bag close, never letting it from sight.
After 2 hours, the bus stopped at a rest area.
Hundreds of buses parked, thousands of people everywhere.
Ibusari announced 30 minutes.
Pilgrims filed off for ablutions before the next prayer.
The four operatives exited separately, maintaining their stranger cover.
Ridan went to the prayer hall, performing ablutions methodically.
Around him, hundreds did the same.
He found space in the prayer rows.
15 m away, Buddhy took position.
20 m opposite, Ahmad stood.
The prayer began.
20 minutes of standing, bowing, prostrating.
By the end, Ridan felt unexpected peace.
He had not anticipated that.
The prayers were supposed to be cover, but performing them five times daily for 4 months had created something genuine.
It made what he was here to do more complicated.
He was going to kill a man during his pilgrimage, during the most spiritually significant experience of his life.
Outside he saw Almadi and the boy heading back to the bus.
The journey continued.
The landscape changed.
Approaching Medina.
Empty desert became palm groves then suburbs.
Then the city.
Medina is Islam’s second holiest city where Muhammad established the first Muslim community.
The prophet’s mosque stands at the city’s heart, a massive complex holding over a million worshippers.
Its green dome is visible from kilometers away, guiding pilgrims for centuries.
The bus navigated heavy traffic.
Modern hotels and shopping centers lined streets filled with pilgrims.
They stopped at their hotel 10 minutes from the mosque.
Pilgrims collected luggage and filed inside.
The operatives had been assigned rooms on the third floor.
Two men each maintaining stranger appearances.
Ridan shared with an elderly Indonesian man who immediately rested after the journey.
This gave Ridan time for a critical task.
He unpacked methodically.
At the bottom of his suitcase, wrapped in clothing, was a modified mobile phone.
To security screeners, it appeared ordinary, but it contained a miniaturized encrypted communication system.
Ridan powered it on, entered a specific touch sequence that activated the hidden function.
A blank screen appeared.
He typed complication target accompanied by juvenile approximately 14 years old appears to be family member requires guidance.
He pressed send.
The message would burst transmit to a satellite, route through multiple servers, and arrive at MSAD within seconds.
response would take at least 6 hours to avoid creating detectable patterns.
He deleted the visible message history, deactivated the hidden system, and placed the phone on the bedside table where it became just another device.
He performed afternoon ablutions and left for the mosque.
The prophet’s mosque was overwhelming.
The scale was massive, covering thousands of square meters with minouetses over a hundred meters high.
But what struck Rido most was the intensity of emotion visible on faces around him.
Men and women from every nation, all sharing the same expression of overwhelming spiritual significance.
Many were crying openly, overcome by standing in this sacred space.
He found the tomb of the prophet marked by a golden screen and surrounded by enormous crowds.
Pilgrims moved slowly past, reaching to touch the barrier, whispering prayers, weeping.
Ridan joined the line, moving with the flow.
And when he reached the tomb, he placed his hand on the screen as others did.
He whispered a memorized prayer.
For a moment, surrounded by the press of believers, breathing air thick with incense and human warmth, he felt the weight of what he was doing.
Not the mission, not the strategic importance, but the human cost of deception.
He was violating something these people held sacred.
He was bringing violence into a space meant for peace.
He left the tomb area and found a quiet corner of the vast courtyard.
He sat cross-legged on marble, watching crowds.
He saw Almadi and the boy across the courtyard 50 m away.
They prayed together, the boy following Almadi’s movements carefully, learning proper form.
After prayer, Almadi spoke to the boy at length, gesturing toward different parts of the mosque, explaining significance.
The boy listened attentively, asking occasional questions.
The interaction looked like an uncle teaching his nephew, passing on religious knowledge to the next generation.
Ridan watched them for 20 minutes, memorizing movement patterns.
The way Almadi maintained awareness even here.
The way the boy never strayed more than a few meters from his side.
Then he returned to the hotel.
The other operatives would be conducting similar reconnaissance, building a comprehensive picture.
They would not speak to each other, would not acknowledge each other’s presence, but they were all gathering the same information, preparing for the operation that would have to wait until Mina.
That evening, after the final prayer, Ridan checked his phone.
The screen showed no visible notifications, but when he activated the hidden system, a message was waiting.
Operation continues.
Target remains priority.
Juvenile creates tactical complication.
Eliminate only if isolated.
Abort if juvenile remains in proximity.
Await natural separation or return.
Negative.
The message was clear.
They would proceed, but only if circumstances allowed elimination without the boy witnessing it.
If no opportunity presented itself, they would report failure and return to Israel.
The decision made operational sense, but it also meant they might travel 3,000 km, maintain cover for 5 days, endure the psychological stress of deep cover in hostile territory, and accomplish nothing.
Because if the boy stayed beside Almadi throughout Hajj, the operation would fail despite perfect preparation.
Ridan deleted the message and lay down.
His roommate was reading the Quran by lamplight, lips moving silently.
The old man looked peaceful, completely unaware that the man sharing his room was an Israeli intelligence officer planning to kill someone in Mecca.
The next day followed the same pattern.
Prayers, meals, visits to holy sites.
The operatives maintained their roles perfectly.
Almadi and the boy remained together constantly.
During dinner that evening, Ridwan overheard the boy explaining to another pilgrim that his father had died 2 years ago and his uncle was taking him on Hajj.
Almadi accepted praise modestly.
The boy was clearly part of his cover identity, which meant natural separation was unlikely.
The next morning, the tour group departed for Mecca, 400 km south.
The atmosphere was different now.
Pilgrims prepared for the most significant experience of their lives.
Ibusari explained the schedule and rules.
They would arrive by afternoon, perform Umrah, then rest before the main Hajj rituals began.
The bus reached Mecca in late afternoon.
The city appeared suddenly after hours of desert.
Skyscrapers towered over the Grand Mosque, but at the center stood the Cabba, the cube-shaped structure that Muslims worldwide faced during prayer.
The operatives collected their bags and checked in.
They had 2 hours before departing for Umrah.
Ridan sent another message to Tel Aviv.
arrived.
Mecca target remains with juvenile constantly proceeding to Hajj rituals tomorrow.
The response came within an hour.
Understood.
Operation approved only of clean separation achieved.
Good luck.
That evening, dressed in white Iram garments, the tour group walked to the Grand Mosque.
The streets were rivers of pilgrims flowing toward the same destination.
The Grand Mosque is the largest in the world.
capable of holding over a million worshippers.
At its center stands the Cabba, the black cube toward which every Muslim prayer is directed.
The crowd moved in waves around it, performing taw, circumambulation.
Seven times counterclockwise, a ritual performed by every Muslim who comes to Mecca.
The operatives joined the flow, moving with thousands in a slow circle.
The press of bodies was intense.
Movement was possible only at the pace of the crowd.
Ridan found himself shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers, breathing air thick with humanity, chanting prayers along with thousands of voices.
He saw Almadi and the boy ahead moving through the same ritual.
The group completed Umra and returned to the hotel after midnight.
Tomorrow, the main Hajj would begin.
Tomorrow they would travel to Mina where the operation would either succeed or fail.
The day of Arafat, the most important day of Hajj.
Over 2 million pilgrims would travel from Mecca to the plain of Arafat, a desert expanse 15 km east to stand in prayer from noon until sunset.
This standing called Wukuf is the essential pillar of Hajj.
Without it, the pilgrimage is not valid.
The prophet Muhammad delivered his final sermon here 14 centuries ago, and every pilgrim who comes to Hajj must follow his example.
The Indonesian tour group departed their hotel at dawn.
The bus joined thousands of vehicles moving slowly through streets packed with pilgrims.
The four operatives sat scattered through the bus.
Ridan near the front, Ahmad in the middle, Booty and Hassan toward the back.
They had not spoken since boarding in Jedha days ago.
Communication was limited to brief eye contact, subtle gestures, the silent language of operatives maintaining cover in hostile territory.
Almati and the boy sat in their usual seats, third row.
The boy was excited, asking questions.
Almadi answered patiently, explaining the significance of the day.
He seemed relaxed, more at ease.
In a crowd of 2 million people, all dressed identically, all focused on the same religious purpose, Almadi felt safe.
The bus took 3 hours to cover 15 km.
When they finally arrived at Arafat, the sight was overwhelming.
A sea of white tents stretched to the horizon.
The Saudi government erected this temporary city every year.
Hundreds of thousands of tents organized by country and region.
The operatives followed their tour group to their assigned tent.
Inside, the heat was suffocating.
45° C outside, even hotter inside.
With bodies packed together, pilgrims spread prayer rugs, claiming space.
The operatives found spaces near the tent’s edges, positioning themselves where they could observe Elmadi without appearing to watch him.
At noon, the call to prayer echoed across the plane.
Millions of voices joined in response.
The pilgrims in the tent stood, arranged themselves in rows, and began to pray.
The prayer lasted hours, not continuous, but cycles of prayer and supplication that continued until sunset.
standing, bowing, prostrating, sitting with hands raised in personal supplication, weeping.
The emotional intensity was extraordinary.
Around Ridwan, pilgrims cried openly, overcome by the significance of standing where the prophet had stood.
Ridan went through the motions, reciting memorized Arabic phrases, but his mind was divided.
Part of him present in the ritual.
Part of him already in Mina, running through scenarios, calculating angles, preparing for when spiritual pilgrimage would transform into targeted assassination.
When the sun finally set, the pilgrims relaxed visibly.
The most important requirement of Hajj had been fulfilled.
They ate simple meals, dates, and bread that tasted extraordinary.
After the long day, Almadi and the boy ate together, the boy talking enthusiastically about what he had felt during the standing.
Almati listened, nodding, occasionally adding comments.
To any observer, they were simply uncle and nephew sharing a spiritual journey.
No one suspected that one of them was a bomb maker responsible for dozens of deaths.
No one suspected that four of the quiet Indonesian pilgrims were Israeli intelligence operatives planning his execution.
At midnight, the camp began to stir.
Pilgrims prepared for the journey to Muzalifa, 9 km away.
Ibousari gathered the Indonesian group, counting heads.
The walk began.
Rivers of humanity flowing through darkness, illuminated by flood lights along the route.
The pace was slow, dictated by the enormous crowd.
The operatives walked separately, maintaining cover.
They reached Muzalifa at 2:00 in the morning.
The ground was covered with small pebbles, smooth stones worn by wind and weather.
Pilgrims collected 49 stones for the stoning ritual.
Ridan collected his methodically, choosing pebbles that were neither too large nor too small.
around him.
Pilgrims did the same, some praying over each stone.
The boy helped Almati, showing him pebbles for approval.
The irony was not lost on Ridan.
Tomorrow, these stones would be thrown at pillars in a symbolic rejection of evil.
Tomorrow, while millions performed this ritual, four men would be using the chaos to commit murder.
When the stones were collected, pilgrims settled to rest.
The ground was hard.
The night air was cold.
Ridan lay on his back looking at stars visible between clouds.
He thought about his children.
His daughter was 12, his son nine.
They knew their father worked for the government, but not the specifics.
He wondered what they would think if they knew.
Would they understand he did this to protect them? The stars provided no answers.
At 4 in the morning, the camp stirred again.
Pilgrims performed dawn prayers and prepared for the walk to Mina.
The distance was short, less than 5 km, but the crowd would make it long.
Ibuari reminded them to stay together, not to become separated.
She explained Mina would be their base for 3 days.
The sun rose as they walked, turning the sky orange and pink.
Almati and the boy walked together, the boy leaning against his uncle’s shoulder, tired.
Almati put his arm around the boy’s shoulders, supporting him.
The gesture was protective, caring.
Whatever Almati was, he clearly cared about this boy.
Mina appeared ahead.
A vast tent city filling the valley between rocky hills.
White tents stretched everywhere, organized in a grid pattern.
The Saudi government had invested billions in infrastructure and towering over everything was the Jamarat Bridge, a massive multi-level structure where millions would gather to perform the stoning.
The Indonesian group found their assigned tent in midm morning.
Pilgrims claimed spaces and collapsed in exhaustion.
The operatives positioned themselves strategically.
Ridan near the front, Ahmad on the left, Buddhy on the right, Hassan near the back.
From these positions, they could observe the entire tent, could watch Almadi without being obvious.
Almadi and the boy took a space in the center.
The boy fell asleep immediately.
Almadi sat beside him, not sleeping, watching other pilgrims with constant vigilance.
His eyes moved methodically across the tent, pausing on faces.
assessing, evaluating old habits, the habits of a man who knew he was hunted.
But he could not possibly suspect that his hunters were already here, already surrounding him, already preparing for the moment that would come later today.
The stoning ritual would begin afternoon prayers.
The Saudi government staggered the flow by assigning different times to different groups.
But even with precautions, the crowds at Jamarat would be enormous.
The perfect environment for an assassination disguised as an accident.
Ridan checked his phone one last time.
The encrypted system showed a final message from Tel Aviv.
Execute if window opens.
Priority is clean completion.
Avoid exposure at all costs.
good hunting.
He deleted the message, powered off the phone completely, and prepared himself mentally.
At noon, the call to prayer echoed across Mina.
Millions stood for prayer, a collective act of worship that transcended divisions.
After prayer, the movement toward Jamarat began.
The Indonesian group gathered their pebbles and joined the flow.
The crowd was thick immediately, bodies pressed together, movement slow and controlled by the sheer mass of humanity.
The operatives positioned themselves strategically within the group.
Ridan moved to the left of Almadi, approximately 10 m away.
Ahmmed was to the right, slightly behind.
Buddhy had positioned himself ahead.
Hassan was directly behind, close enough to act if an opportunity presented itself.
The boy walked beside Almadi, holding his uncle’s hand tightly, clearly frightened by the enormous crowd.
Almadi spoke to him constantly, reassuring him, telling him to stay close.
They moved forward slowly, part of a river of white clothed pilgrims, all flowing toward the same destination.
The Jamarat Bridge came into view.
A massive concrete structure, multilevel, designed to allow hundreds of thousands to perform the stoning simultaneously.
But even with this infrastructure, the crowding was intense.
People were packed body to body, moving in a slow shuffle toward the pillars.
The operatives began their final approach.
This was the moment they had trained for, planned for, risked everything for.
Rwan’s heart rate increased, adrenaline flooding his system, but his breathing remained controlled, his expression calm.
Around him, pilgrims were focused on the ritual ahead, on maintaining their place in the crowd, on keeping family members close.
No one was watching him.
No one suspected anything.
The crowd density increased as they approached the bridge.
Movement became more difficult.
People were no longer walking, but being carried forward by the pressure of the crowd behind them.
Someone stumbled and nearly fell.
Other pilgrims grabbed them, held them upright, prevented a potentially deadly cascade of falling bodies.
The heat was overwhelming.
The smell of sweat and unwashed bodies was thick in the air.
Shouts in dozens of languages, children crying, the elderly gasping.
This was the chaos they had planned for.
The moment when violence could hide behind accident, when a death would seem like just another tragedy in the crush of millions.
And then just as they reached the base of the bridge, just as the operatives were positioning themselves for the final approach, something unexpected happened.
The boy let go of Almadi’s hand.
It happened in an instant.
The crowd surged forward and the boy, smaller and lighter than the adults around him, was pulled away by the flow of bodies.
He called out to Almadi, his voice swallowed by thousands of other voices.
Almadi turned, reaching for him, but the distance was already too great.
The crowd had separated them.
The boy disappeared into the mass of white clothed pilgrims, carried away by a current stronger than any individual will.
Almati tried to push toward where the boy had been, but the crowd was too dense, too powerful.
Movement was possible only in the direction the crowd was moving.
Fighting against it was feudal.
Almadi’s face showed panic for the first time since Jedha.
His eyes swept the crowd desperately searching for the boy, but hundreds of white Iram garments surrounded him.
The boy was gone and Almadi was alone.
Ridan saw it happen.
Saw the separation.
Saw the panic on Almadi’s face.
This was the window.
This was the opportunity.
Ridan made eye contact with Ahmad 20 m away through the crowd.
A subtle nod.
The operation was active.
They began to move, not rushing, because rushing was impossible in this density, but shifting position, using the crowd’s momentum, working their way closer to Almadi.
Ridan moved from the left, Ahmad from the right, Hassan from behind.
Booty was ahead, positioning himself to block any forward movement.
The classic box formation adapted for extreme crowding.
Almati was still searching for the boy, turning his head constantly, calling out a name that Ridan could not hear over the noise.
The crowd pressed tighter as they approached the bridge entrance.
Bodies squeezed together.
Personal space ceased to exist.
Ridan was now 5 m from Almadi, then three, then close enough to reach out and touch him.
Ahmad was on the other side, equally close.
Hassan was directly behind.
The three of them formed a triangle around the target with booty ahead to prevent escape.
Almati was completely surrounded but did not realize it because everyone was surrounded by everyone else.
This was simply how the crowd functioned at Jamarat.
dense, intimate, inescapable.
Ridan moved closer.
Now he was directly beside Almati, shoulderto-shoulder with him in the press of bodies.
Almati glanced at him, but his eyes showed no recognition, no suspicion, just the distraction of a man looking for a lost child.
The crowd moved them onto the bridge.
The structure vibrated slightly under the weight of hundreds of thousands of people.
A low frequency hum that added to the sensory overload.
The first pillar was ahead, visible through the crowd.
Pilgrims were throwing their stones, most tossing them gently from a distance.
The stones arked through the air, hundreds of them, creating a constant rain of pebbles.
Ridan reached into his small bag and pulled out not the stones he had collected at Muzalifa, but something else entirely.
A thin wire, flexible but incredibly strong, woven from synthetic materials developed by Israeli military research.
It looked like ordinary thread used for clothing repairs, but it was designed to cut through flesh and compress arteries with minimal force.
He had carried it through every security checkpoint because it appeared to be exactly what it was, a piece of thread wrapped around a small spool.
The weapons the operatives carried were designed around this principle.
Objects that appeared innocent but could be transformed into lethal tools.
Ridan unwound a length of wire, holding the ends in his hands, concealing it against his body.
The crowd pressed tighter.
Almadi was now directly in front of him, still calling out for the boy, his voice from shouting.
Ridan positioned himself, waiting for the right moment.
The moment when the crowd’s natural movement would disguise what he was about to do.
It came as they reached the pillar.
The crowd surged forward, everyone trying to throw their stones.
And in that surge, Ridan moved.
He brought his hands up and forward, looping the wire over Almadi’s head.
crossing his wrists behind the man’s neck, pulling tight.
Almighty’s hands went to his throat instantly, trying to get fingers under the wire, but Rwan had positioned it perfectly, cutting into the sides of the neck where the corateed arteries ran close to the surface.
The wire was thin enough that it sank into flesh immediately, cutting off blood flow to the brain.
Elmotti struggled, his body thrashing, but the crowd was so dense that his movements looked like someone simply trying to keep balance.
People around them noticed nothing unusual because everyone was pushing, shoving, trying to maintain position.
Ridan held the wire tight, his face close to Almadi’s ear, his expression calm, his breathing controlled.
45 seconds.
That was how long it took for the brain to lose consciousness from complete corateed compression.
Ridan counted silently, maintaining pressure, ignoring the feeling of Almadi’s body fighting against him.
Around them, pilgrims threw stones at the pillar, recited prayers, focused on their ritual.
No one was watching the two men pressed together in the crowd.
At 30 seconds, Elmadi’s struggles weakened.
At 40 seconds, his hands fell away from his throat.
At 45 seconds, his body went limp.
Ridan held the wire in place for another 15 seconds, ensuring complete cerebral hypoxia, then carefully unwound it and let Elmadi’s body slump forward.
The crowd carried the body naturally, holding it upright through sheer pressure of surrounding bodies.
Redwan released him completely and used the crowd’s momentum to move sideways, putting distance between himself and the corpse.
Other pilgrims began to notice that something was wrong.
He was not responding.
His weight was pressing against them unnaturally.
Someone called out.
Others turned to look.
Within seconds, there was commotion as people realized a man had collapsed.
Voices shouted for help.
People tried to create space around the body, but creating space in this density was nearly impossible.
Ridan continued moving away, working his way laterally through the crowd.
He saw Ahmad doing the same from the other direction.
Hassan had already disappeared into the mass of pilgrims.
Booty was ahead somewhere, putting distance between himself and the scene.
The four operatives were separating, becoming individual pilgrims again, indistinguishable from thousands of others.
Behind them, the commotion around Omadi’s body grew.
People were shouting for medical help.
Saudi medical personnel began pushing through the crowd, following the shouts, carrying emergency equipment.
By the time they reached Almadi, Ridwan was 50 m away on the far side of the bridge, completing his stoning ritual by throwing pebbles at the pillar like any normal pilgrim.
The wire was back in his bag, wound on its spool, appearing to be nothing more than thread.
His hands were steady.
His breathing was normal.
His expression showed the mild exhaustion that everyone felt after fighting through the crowds, but nothing more.
He completed his seven throws, recited a brief prayer, and moved with the crowd toward the exit.
The flow of pilgrims carried him away from the scene down the bridgeg’s ramps back into the vast tent city of Mina.
He found his way back to the Indonesian group’s tent, arriving with other members who had already completed their stoning.
Ibusari was there, checking names, ensuring her group members were returning safely.
She smiled at Ridwan, asked if the stoning had been difficult.
He said it was crowded but manageable.
His Indonesian was perfect, his manner calm, his cover completely intact.
He sat on his prayer rug and drank water.
Just another exhausted pilgrim recovering from a difficult ritual.
Over the next hour, more members returned.
Ahmad arrived, then Booty, then Hassan.
Each at different times, each alone, each giving no sign of knowing the others.
As afternoon wore into evening, word began to spread through the tent city.
Someone had died at Jamarat.
A man had collapsed in the crowd and despite medical efforts could not be revived.
Such deaths were not uncommon during Hajj.
The combination of extreme heat, exhaustion, dehydration, and the physical stress of the crowds killed dozens of pilgrims every year.
Most were elderly people whose hearts simply gave out.
The Saudi government investigated every death, but in most cases, the cause was obvious and natural.
heart attack, heat stroke, dehydration, natural causes that required no criminal investigation.
As darkness fell, ambulances came and went from various locations throughout the tent city.
Among those deaths was Fared Almadi, identified by documents found in his belongings, Indonesian passport, Hajj permit, contact information for his tour group.
The Saudi authorities contacted Mina Tours, informed them that one of their pilgrims had died.
Ibuari was devastated.
She gathered the Indonesian group that evening, tearfully informing them that their fellow pilgrim had died.
She asked if anyone had been close to him who should be contacted.
Several pilgrims spoke up saying he had been traveling with his nephew, a teenage boy.
Where was the boy? Had anyone seen him? No one had.
The realization spread through the group that a child had been separated from his guardian during the crowds and was now alone somewhere in Mina, possibly unaware that his uncle had died.
Ibsari immediately contacted Saudi authorities reporting a missing child.
The authorities added him to the list of separated pilgrims.
The four operatives listened to these conversations with appropriate expressions of concern.
Ridan even volunteered to help search for the boy, spending several hours walking through different sections of Mina, calling out the boy’s name, creating a record of concern, of appropriate behavior from a fellow pilgrim worried about a lost child.
He returned to the tent after midnight, reported he had found no sign of the boy.
Everyone should rest now.
Tomorrow they would need to perform the stoning again.
The tent settled into sleep.
The operatives lay on their prayer rugs, each alone with his thoughts.
They had succeeded.
The target was dead.
The operation was complete.
Now they needed to survive the remaining days of Hajj and extract themselves from Saudi Arabia without raising suspicion.
The next morning, the boy was found.
He had spent the night at a lost pilgrim facility, frightened and confused.
Saudi staff brought him to the Minur’s tent.
Ibusari had to inform him that his uncle had died.
The boy’s reaction was devastating.
He collapsed, weeping, refusing to believe it.
Other pilgrims comforted him, held him as he cried.
Ridan watched from across the tent, his expression showing appropriate sadness for a child who had lost his guardian.
Inside, he felt nothing.
The boy was a complication they had worked around.
His grief was unfortunate but irrelevant to the mission’s success.
The remaining days of Hajj passed without incident.
The operatives completed all required rituals, maintaining their cover as devout Indonesian pilgrims.
They performed the stoning on the second and third days without any operational purpose, simply going through the motions their cover identities required.
The Indonesian group departed Mina on the fifth day, traveling back to Mecca for one final night.
The boy traveled with them, silent and withdrawn.
Ibsari had contacted his family in Gaza through the false contact information in Almadi’s documents.
Arrangements were being made for the body to be returned.
The boy would fly back to Jakarta where Hamas operatives posing as family members would collect him.
At Jedha airport, the four operatives separated, taking different flights back to Jakarta.
Ridwan’s flight departed in the evening.
He sat surrounded by other pilgrims heading home, many looking exhausted but spiritually fulfilled.
He appeared the same.
In Jakarta, he went to his cover apartment, stayed 3 days, then departed on a flight to Singapore.
In Singapore, he switched identities.
From Singapore to Bangkok, from Bangkok to Istanbul.
From Istanbul to Athens.
From Athens finally back to Tel Aviv.
The entire journey took 6 days, a deliberately convoluted route designed to break any surveillance trail.
He landed at Bengurian airport on a Tuesday evening in late June.
A car was waiting.
He entered MSAD headquarters through the underground garage, took an elevator to the fourth floor, walked to a conference room where the operations planning committee was waiting.
the same eight officers who had authorized the mission 7 months earlier.
They stood when he entered.
The debriefing lasted 4 hours.
Ridan provided a detailed account of everything that had occurred.
When he finished, the mission commander thanked him for his service and told him to go home, to rest, to spend time with his family.
He drove to his apartment in Tel Aviv, a place he had not seen in 4 months.
His wife was waiting, asked no questions because she knew better.
He showered, washing away the dust of Saudi Arabia, the sweat of the crowds, the memory of Almadi’s body going limp against him.
He sat on his balcony, looking out at the Tel Aviv skyline, drinking tea, trying to process what he had done.
He had killed a man during that man’s Hajj during the most sacred journey in Islam.
He had transformed a religious pilgrimage into an execution ground.
The justification was solid.
Almadi had built bombs that killed civilians.
His death would save Israeli lives, would set back Hamas’s capabilities.
All of this was true.
But it did not erase the feeling that he had violated something fundamental.
He thought about the boy, now alone, flying back to Gaza, believing his uncle had died of natural causes.
The boy would never know that Israeli operatives had killed the man he trusted.
Within a week, Hamas issued a statement announcing the death of a senior operative during Hajj.
They called it a martyrdom, though they believed it had been natural causes.
Israeli intelligence monitored these statements, confirming that Hamas believed the death was natural.
The operation had been successful not just in eliminating the target, but in remaining completely covert.
Over the following months, Israeli intelligence observed the impact.
Hamas’s bomb- making capabilities did decline.
Detonators became crudder and less effective.
Israeli security forces detected and prevented attacks that might have succeeded if Almadi had built the devices.
Lives were saved.
The strategic justification was vindicated.
But there was an epilogue that complicated the success.
A year after Almadi’s death, the boy, now 15 years old, appeared in Hamas propaganda videos.
He had joined the organization’s military wing, trained as a fighter, sworn to avenge his uncle’s death.
He believed his uncle had been a martyr killed by the hardships of Hajj while performing his religious duty.
He had been radicalized by grief and by Hamas’s exploitation of that grief.
Israeli intelligence began tracking him, adding him to the database of Hamas operatives monitoring his activities.
The cycle continued.
The man they had killed to prevent future attacks had been replaced by a new generation of fighters motivated by the deaths of those who came before them.
Ridan learned about the boy through classified briefings.
He saw the surveillance photographs, the intercepted communications.
The boy was now a target, someone who might eventually require elimination.
Ridan wondered if in 5 or 10 years another operation would be planned and this boy who had lost his uncle at Jamarat would himself die in some covert assassination.
The thought was exhausting.
He left Mossad 6 months after the operation citing personal reasons requesting transfer to a different intelligence division with less operational stress.
>> >> He moved to a desk job analyzing intelligence reports, contributing to Israel’s security without personally killing anyone.
He never spoke to his family about what had happened in Saudi Arabia.
Never told his children why he sometimes woke in the night breathing hard, remembering the feeling of wire cutting into flesh.
The operation remained classified, buried in archives that would not be opened for decades, if ever.
The official record would show only that Fared Almadi died of natural causes during Hajj in 2004.
His death was unfortunate but not suspicious, one of many that occurred every year.
No one except the operatives who executed the mission and the officers who authorized it knew the truth.
And the truth would remain hidden because revealing it would accomplish nothing except confirming what many already suspected.
That in the modern world, nowhere is truly safe.
No space is truly sacred.
And intelligence agencies will go anywhere to eliminate those they deem threats.
