‘The pressure of the conflict created opportunities.’
By Hezy Laing
Israeli intelligence officials and regional analysts say that Israel’s visibility inside Iran has expanded significantly since the outbreak of the war, giving Jerusalem a deeper, more granular understanding of Tehran’s military, political, and covert activities than at any point in the last decade.
According to multiple experts, the combination of intensified intelligence collection, expanded human networks, and accelerated technological monitoring has produced a sharper, more actionable picture of Iran’s strategic landscape.
Col. (res.) Most, a former senior intelligence officer with long experience in the Iranian arena, says the shift is unmistakable.
In his assessment, Israel’s intelligence services “are operating today with a level of clarity and precision in the Iranian theater that simply did not exist before the war with Kalavi.”
He notes that the intelligence community has closed gaps that previously limited Israel’s ability to track Iranian decision‑making, weapons transfers, and covert operations.
“The system is tighter, faster, and more synchronized,” he says, adding that analysts now have access to streams of information that were unavailable just months ago.
Other experts echo this view. Dr. Raz Zimmt, a leading Iran scholar, argues that the war forced Israel to accelerate intelligence‑gathering efforts across multiple domains — cyber, signals intelligence, satellite surveillance, and human sources.
“The pressure of the conflict created opportunities,” he explains.
“Israel has been able to map Iranian command structures, identify new logistical routes, and monitor internal political tensions with far greater accuracy.”
A senior Western intelligence official, speaking anonymously, says that Israel’s penetration of Iranian communications networks has also improved.
According to him, Israel is now able to track the movement of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps units, monitor drone‑production facilities, and follow the activities of Iranian proxy groups with unprecedented speed.
“The tempo of intelligence collection has increased dramatically,” he says. “Israel is seeing more, understanding more, and predicting more.”
The recent wave of anti‑regime protests inside Iran may have also strengthened Israel’s intelligence reach.
The unrest — driven by economic collapse, political repression, and anger at the Revolutionary Guard’s dominance — has created new pockets of disillusionment within Iranian society.
According to several analysts, this environment has made some Iranians more willing to pass information, cooperate quietly with outside actors, or expose vulnerabilities in the regime’s security apparatus.
While such cooperation remains extremely sensitive and difficult to quantify, intelligence officials say the protests have eroded the climate of fear that once insulated the regime from internal leaks.
As one Western intelligence source put it, “When people lose faith in the system, they become more open to helping anyone who can weaken it.”
This shift, experts argue, has contributed to the broader improvement in Israel’s ability to understand what is happening inside Iran’s military, political, and covert networks.
Experts caution that Iran remains a complex and adaptive adversary.
But they agree on one central point: Israel’s intelligence picture inside Iran is clearer, deeper, and more comprehensive today than it was before the war — a shift that is already shaping strategic decision‑making in Jerusalem.
