Ex-CIA officer weighs in: Was Hamas leader Haniyeh tracked via WhatsApp?

“Israel has invested a great deal of development money in various electronic tracking techniques like Lavender that enable it to locate and attack targets,” Philip Giraldi, former military intelligence and CIA operations officer, tells Sputnik.

Giraldi also assured that colleagues have informed him that these tracking techniques have proved very effective.

Although the actual role of the messenger in the process of tracking a person is not known, if true, it would not be the first time that a tech company has cooperated with a foreign intelligence service, the expert emphasizes.

But why Hamas might have continued to use such a compromised system like WhatsApp remains a mystery, Giraldi concludes.

Soon after the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in an airstrike in Tehran, Lebanese journalist Elia Manier claimed that Haniyeh had been tracked by Israeli intelligence via WhatsApp installed on his phone. The spyware made it possible to detect the exact location of the house where the Hamas leader was located and launch a missile strike on it from a drone, the journalist suggested.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Americans Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan are leaving Russia as part of an exchange deal involving several countries, Bloomberg writes.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇮🇷 Tehran's response to Haniyeh's killing will be harsher than the previous strike on Israel, Iranian analyst warns

Iran’s retaliation to Tel Aviv for killing Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran “will be more severe, more painful to the Israeli regime than what Tel Aviv experienced after it attacked the Iranian consulate in Damascus,” Seyed Mohammad Marandi, a political analyst and professor at Tehran University, tells Spuntik.

He believes that "any escalation will simply make things worse for the regime in Tel Aviv," predicting that Iran and other members of the Axis of Resistance will deliver a "major response" to recent actions by Israel.Marandi elaborates that "the Israeli regime has lost the war."

"It has lost in Gaza after ten months, it has failed to take this very small piece of land. It has failed in its war with Hezbollah after almost ten months of conflict. The Israeli regime has been unable to dislodge Hezbollah from the border, and it has paid a heavy price," he says.

Marandi also warned that if the US were to intervene, they would "lose" and face severe consequences, including being expelled from Iraq and seeing their bases in the Persian Gulf region destroyed.

At the same time Marandi argues that only the Americans and the Europeans are able to stop the full-fledged war in the region.

“They are the ones who are supporting this Holocaust. They are the ones who are enabling the regime in Tel Aviv to continue raping prisoners and murdering children. This is a war that they endorse. They are providing the funding, the ammunition, the weapons, the political cover. Without full Western support Tel Aviv would not be able to continue this war for two weeks. So we all know that the leash is in Washington, so it's up to the Americans to make a decision,” he says.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️A large-scale prisoner exchange involving Russia, the United States, Germany and other countries is currently underway, CNN reported, citing a senior administration official.

The transfer of prisoners is currently underway and American prisoners are expected to be in US custody soon, the administration official said.

A total of 24 prisoners will be freed in the multilateral exchange, according to CBS.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Ukraine’s oil row with Hungary and Slovakia: what is going on?

Ukraine’s relations with Hungary and Slovakia continue to deteriorate after Kiev cracked down on the transit of Russian oil to these two countries.

🔸Hungary’s and Slovakia’s oil imports got cut by about one third when Ukraine halted the transit of oil to these countries from Russian petroleum company, Lukoil, under the pretext of depriving Russia of oil revenues.

🔸Appeals by Hungary and Slovakia to the European Commission have so far yielded no result, as the latter simply claimed that this situation poses no risk to either country’s energy supply.

🔸With no help from Brussels coming, Hungary and Slovakia are now communicating with Moscow to try and figure out how to resume the flow of oil.

🔸Meanwhile, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico warned that his country may not resume shipments of diesel fuel to Ukraine, if Kiev does not resume the flow of Russian oil.

🔸Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto also promised to block the 6.5 billion euros’ worth of EU refunds to EU member states who have supplied weapons to Ukraine, if the situation with Lukoil oil supply is not resolved.

🔸Kiev, however, insists that it is not going to resume the transit of Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia, and claims that it has an understanding with Brussels in this matter.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Fair and equal competition at the 2024 Olympics?

Algerian boxer with male chromosomes Imane Khelif beat Italian Angela Carini in 46 seconds when the latter refused to continue the fight after several blows from the man who identifies as a woman. Algerian boxer previously failed a prior gender eligibility test.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Turkish Intelligence Directorate is coordinating the prisoner exchange between Russia and the US. Evan Gershkovich is being exchanged for several Russians, IHA agency reported

A plane of the "Russia" special forces unit took off from Moscow Vnukovo airport and landed in Ankara amid news of a prisoner exchange.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Footage from the Turkish NTV channel from Ankara airport, where, according to its information, an exchange of prisoners is to take place.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Hezbollah has entered a new phase of military action against Israel on all fronts, the movement's Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah said.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Turkish intelligence said that the operation to exchange 26 prisoners from seven countries took place in Ankara with its mediation.

Ten of those released as part of the exchange are heading to Russia, 13 to Germany and three to the United States, Turkish channel NTV reported.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Israeli air force strikes outskirts of Shamaa settlement in southern Lebanon, casualties reported, a local source told Sputnik.

Footage from social media.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Hezbollah to resume 'support front' for Gaza and attacks on Israeli military positions starting Friday morning, the movement's Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah said.

There will definitely be a response to Israel's crimes and this issue is not up for discussion, the Hezbollah leader added.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇮🇷🇷🇺 Russian FM Sergey Lavrov phoned the acting Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani to discuss the assassination of Hamas leader, the Russian Foreign Ministry reported.

The parties pointed out the unacceptability of political assassinations and the extremely dangerous consequences of such actions.

Lavrov also called on all parties influencing the situation in the Gaza Strip and the Middle East as a whole to avoid actions that could lead to further destabilization.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt