Doron Kabilio was an Israel Defense Forces soldier and Mista'arvim undercover operative. He took part in several major special forces operations, including the hunt for Taufiq Hammed in 2013 and 2015, the defeat of Abu Seif al-Makdasi's ISIL terror cell in 2018, a hostage rescue mission in Gaza in 2020, and the rescue of Gabi Ayub and capture of Omar Tawalbe in Lebanon in 2023.
Biography[]
Doron Kabilio was born in Israel, the son of an Iraqi-Jewish immigrant, Amos Kabilio. While Doron did not get along well with his father during his childhood due to his father's frequent absences on clandestine espionage duties, Doron followed in his father's footsteps by joining the Israel Defense Forces' Mista'arvim counter-terrorism unit, serving under Mickey Moreno. During his service, Kabilio became close friends with his teammates Eli Daniel, Naor Barzani, Nurit Shimon, Avihai Ben-Haim, Steve Pinto, and Boaz Capon, whose sister Gali he came to marry. In 2013, he was credited with the killing of Hamas arch-terrorist Taufiq Hammed (Abu Ahmad), after which he retired to run a winery and live with his wife Gali and his children Ido and Noga.
Kabilio in 2018
Eighteen months later (in 2015), however, Shin Bet captain Gabi Ayub discovered from Hamas commander Ali Karmi that Hammed was still alive, and that he was planning a major terrorist attack. Moreno visited Doron and persuaded him to return to his unit to finish the job. Doron and Eli failed to assassinate Hammed at the wedding of his brother Bashir, and a Hamas revenge attack in Tel Aviv killed Boaz's girlfriend. Kabilio went undercover to gather intelligence that would ascertain Hammed's location, seducing the nurse Shirin al-Abed (the cousin of Hammed's right-hand man Walid al-Abed) in the process and utilizing her for intelligence. After Hammed captured Boaz during a failed Mista'arvim raid, Doron and his team mutinied against Moreno and the Defense Ministry by illegally kidnapping Sheikh Mohammed Ali Awadalla and Hammed's daughter Abir and forcing a prisoner exchange. Doron learned from Shirin that Hammed had forced her to plant a bomb in Boaz, leading to Doron strapping both Awadalla and the girl with suicide vests at the exchange. When an angry Hammed had Boaz blown up, Doron triggered Awadalla's vest, but Abir was merely wounded in the eye by that explosion and recovered at Hadassah Hospital. Doron deserted his team rather than face trial, and he visited Shirin to treat a gunshot wound sustained during the failed exchange. He then thwarted an attempt on her life by Hammed's men, who suspected Shirin of being an informant, and he learned from one of them that Hammed was recruiting suicide bombers for an upcoming attack. Doron, posing as a Palestinian man whose brother-in-law had been killed by the Israelis, passed the interview process, and, while he was arrested by the Palestinian Preventive Security and handed over to Shin Bet, Captain Ayub allowed Doron to continue his infiltration in order to thwart Hammed's plans. As Doron prepared for the final attack, his cover was blown when Walid - believing that his cousin Shirin was in a relationship with an undercover PPS officer - confronted the PPS about their agent, only to find out from them that the undercover officer was Israeli, and that he was the same man as the suicide bomber he had just vetted. Before Walid could order Doron's death, the Mista'arvim team swept in and killed Doron's Hamas handlers while also confiscating the bomb. Walid murdered Hammed shortly after, angered that Hammed had attempted to kill his cousin, of whom he was enamored. Doron was pardoned by the Israeli government as thanks for his efforts, but his relationship was ruined when Walid sent Shirin a video of Doron's PPS interrogation, causing Shirin to walk out on Doron mid-date.
Over the next three years, Doron and his wife separated due to her affair with Naor and her inability to cope with Doron's lack of a work-life balance. Doron helped his father farm in the Negev, and, in 2018, they were ambushed by gunmen while driving packs of feed back to their farm. Doron killed one of the attackers, and Amos Kabilio's neighbor Abu Ala'a captured the other, Izat Abu Kwaider, and interrogated him until he revealed to Doron that he had been sent by Abu Seif al-Makdasi, an ISIL-trained Hamas terrorist and the son of Awadalla. Vengeful for his father, who had been slightly wounded in the ambush, Doron decided to return to duty with his team. He had Izat meet with him at a cafe in Nablus, serving as bait for Makdasi, and Izat was killed when Makdasi fired an RPG at the cafe, while the team was unable to capture Makdasi. As Makdasi fled, Moreno and Major Yossi Yohanan attempted to pursue in a Humvee, only to be killed by one of Makdasi's remote-triggered IEDs. Eli Daniel was promoted to head the Mista'arvim team, while the Israelis learned that Makdasi was working in partnership with Walid al-Abed, now the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades' leader in the West Bank. Doron reestablished contact with Shirin, who overcame her hard feelings for Doron and agreed to work with the Israelis in exchange for a fresh start in Europe. With Shirin's help, the Mista'arvim captured Walid as he attempted to kidnap her for collaboration, as Makdasi's sister Marwa Awadalla warned Walid that she had seen Shirin talking with a strange man at the hospital. Doron cared for Shirin, both at a Shin Bet-provided apartment and at his father's farm, where they rekindled their old flame, even as Shirin prepared to leave for Europe with her new passport. Walid was tortured into revealing Makdasi's hideout at a Nablus barbershop, after which Naor executed Walid with a gunshot to the head.
Meanwhile, Makdasi - who had since broken with Hamas and formally joined ISIL - forced one of Walid's henchmen to send him the home address of Doron's family, and, while posing as a colleague of Doron, he learned from Doron's son Ido that Amos lived on a farm in the Negev. Makdasi tracked down Amos' farm while Doron and Shirin drove to the airport, and Makdasi called Doron and told him that he had his father. When Doron returned to the farm, he found that Amos had been beheaded for an ISIL propaganda video, and he took his anger out by accusing Shirin of betraying him, ending their romance. Not long after, Shirin, who had lost her husband, the love of Doron, and even her chance to go to Europe due to the increasingly perilous situation, hanged herself at her safehouse, and Doron later found her body.
Doron was persuaded by Eli to take part in the Nablus barbershop raid that would bring down Makdasi and avenge Amos, but Makdasi escaped during the shootout. The IDF rounded up several of Makdasi's cell members, Birzeit University students who had taken Hebrew classes in preparation for an infiltration operation, and PPS chief Abu Maher learned from his arrested son Maher Muhammad Imad Asheikh that the plan was to set off truck bombs in Tel Aviv. While the IDF dealt with the bombs, Doron and Ido were kidnapped by Makdasi as they drove to Ido's judo tournament in the capital. Makdasi planned to execute Doron for another propaganda video, as well as to avenge his father's death at Doron's hands. However, Abu Samara and his Hamas team crashed the planned execution, believing that Makdasi had murdered al-Abed. In the ensuing shootout, Doron freed himself and shot Makdasi dead, putting an end to ISIL's attempt to expand into Palestine.
Doron went on to resume his undercover work, and, in 2019, he spent six months in Dhahiriyah, south of Hebron, posing as the Israeli-Arab boxing trainer "Abu Fadi" in order to train Bashar Hamdan, the cousin of wanted terrorist Fauzi Hamdan. Doron became close to Bashar's family, including his famous father Jihad Hamdan (a renowned hunger striker of the First Intifada) and his uncle, Abu Fauzi (the owner of the gym where Bashar trained). Doron also sold explosives to Fauzi's associates in an attempt to get close to Fauzi, but, during Jihad's welcome-home party on his release from prison, Doron left the party with Fauzi's associate Ziad and was forced to shoot him when Ziad confronted him over his suspicious behavior as a boxing trainer selling explosives. Meanwhile, Fauzi masterminded an assassination attempt on both Gabi Ayub and PPS chief Abu Maher as they met to sign a cooperation agreement, resulting in Abu Maher's death and Ayub being wounded and placed in physiotherapy, where Doron frequently visited him.
The Ziad incident, as well as Fauzi's search of Doron's apartment (where he found a written-down phone number for an Israeli family visitation center), led Fauzi to determine that Doron was a traitor. Fauzi told Bashar about Doron's duplicity and sent him to arrange a meeting with Doron at the gym at midnight, where Doron would be killed. Bashar, while feeling betrayed, warned Doron, only for Fauzi's men to catch him in the act. As Fauzi and his men prepared to execute Doron and Bashar, Doron's Mista'arvim teammates attacked the Hamas militants, and Doron pursued and shot Fauzi.
With Fauzi dead, Shin Bet sent in the Mista'arvim team to hunt down a Nukba Force commando unit that had infiltrated the West Bank at Yatta, and the commandos were wiped out. At the same time, Doron pressed Ayub's deputy Dana Shirom to help him ensure Bashar's safety, fearing that he would be killed as a collaborator. However, Bashar, seeking to prove his loyalty to Hamas, entered an Israeli kibbutz with a knife, only for his father Jihad to come find him and help him escape before Bashar got himself killed. With Bashar now listed as a terrorist, the Israelis could no longer do anything to help him. Bashar's uncle Abu Fauzi, who either sought to kill Bashar to redeem the family or force Bashar to kill Doron, persuaded Bashar to lure Doron into an ambush in Jenin. Doron secretly had his Mista'arvim team go undercover to provide security for the meeting, and they foiled an attempt by Abu Fauzi to kill Doron in a suicide bombing. Bashar, his ruse blown, was forced by his father to help him kidnap two Israeli students as they camped in the desert, and Doron and his team attempted to find the kidnappers before they smuggled Yaara Zarhi and Elad Banali into Gaza. Doron and his team narrowly failed, being fought off by Hamas militants at a tunnel entrance in Sderot as the hostages were taken deep into Hamas territory.
Shin Bet decided to arrange for the Mista'arvim team to infiltrate Gaza and retrieve the hostages to avert all-out war, with Doron and his teammates taking on the near-impossible task. Disguised as fishermen, they infiltrated Gaza City with the help of their local collaborator, the Sheikh's personal secretary Abu Ihad, who sheltered them at his home. Doron and his team, guided by Shin Bet Gaza Desk head Hila Bashan (Doron's sometimes lover), tailed Yusuf al-Masri to al-Shifa Hospital, which they suspected of being either al-Jabari's hideout or the place where the hostages were held. The Mista'arvim team located Elad Banali when he made an escape attempt and connected to the team via cell phone, but they failed to cover his escape with a smoke grenade; a Hamas militant shot him in the back as he fled into the smoke. The Mista'arvim operatives were forced to flee, their presence now known to the Gazans, but they decided to continue the mission and rescue Yaara. Shin Bet tracked down Jihad Hamdan's phone as he made a call to his wife, whose phone was tapped, and Doron tailed Jihad and was forced to shoot him dead after Jihad pulled a gun on him. Shin Bet decided to evacuate the team by helicopter, and, after Nukhba Force commander Hani al-Jabari discovered Abu Ihad's duplicity and executed him, the Mista'arvim team was sent to evacuate Abu Ihad's family as well. Doron and his team killed the Hamas commandos sent to kill Abu Ihad's family, kidnapping their commander Issam Yunis and forcing him to lead them - disguised as Nukhba commandos - into Shifa Hospital, where Bashan claimed Yaara was being held. However, Bashan lied, knowing that Yaara was unlikely to have been moved as Gaza's security tightened. Doron and his team stormed the hospital, capturing Jabari, but Doron and Avihai Ben-Haim remained behind to capture Bashar as the rest of the team evacuated with Jabari. Bashar shot and fatally wounded Avihai, forcing Doron to break into a Palestinian journalist's home and have the man call a doctor for Avihai. Nurit Shimon and Steve Pinto were sent in, posing as ambulance drivers, and rescued Doron and Avihai, only for Avihai to die as the team reached their evacuation point. The team resolved to avenge Avihai, evacuating Abu Ihad's family on the chopper and returning to Gaza to kidnap Jabari's daughter, forcing Jabari to cooperate with them in heading to Samir Abu Samhadana's estate, where Bashar and Yaara had moved after the hospital raid.
The team, disguised as Nukhba commandos, accompanied Jabari to Abu Samhadana's home, and, while Jabari threatened Abu Samhadana into transferring Yaara to his custody, Bashar pointed out that Jabari was unarmed and that the commandos were thus the Israelis, resulting in a shootout. Abu Samhadana was killed and his mansion cleared of fighters, and the Israelis chased Bashar into the desert as he drove off with Yaara. Yaara threw herself from the vehicle, while Bashar escaped; the Israelis rescued Yaara and took her back to the extraction point, completing their mission. Doron and his team were awarded with medals for their successful operation, while Jabari was executed by Bashar for collaborating with the Israelis.
Doron and his team mourned Avihai's death, while Doron befriended Yaara, who came to Avihai's funeral repast with her family to pay their respects. Days later, Bashar resurfaced after infiltrating Israel, and the Mista'arvim team failed to capture him in the al-Ramadin raid. Bashar was able to escape and find Yaara's address in Beit Zayit, taking her hostage. Doron arrived at the scene and attempted to persuade Bashar to stand down, but Bashar, whose father, uncle, and cousin owed their deaths to Doron, executed Yaara before surrendering to the police and being taken into custody. Doron attempted to shoot Bashar dead as he was hauled off, but Doron was prevented from doing so.
Eli then ruled Doron unfit for the team, hoping to give him time to recover as he dealt with guilt over his failure to save Boaz, Moreno, Avihai, and Yaara. In 2023, Doron attended the wedding of Nurit and Boaz's replacement Sagi Tzur, where Ayub offered Doron a gig as his bodyguard during his trip to Brussels to meet with his informant Omar Tawalbe, who had infiltrated Hezbollah. Doron agreed, but, when he met with Omar, his aggressive behavior led to Ayub sending Doron back to the safehouse. While Doron was away, Tawalbe killed Ayub's other guards, took Tawalbe captive, and tortured him into giving up the addresses of his informants in Jenin and his Mista'arvim team. Doron arranged for Dana to dispatch the Mista'arvim team to Brussels to rescue Ayub, believing him alive. The team kidnapped imam Muhammad al-Qutb, whose mosque Omar attended, and retrieved the name "Ibrahim" from him; they found that Ibrahim regularly picked up medication from a pharmacy before heading to a criminal-overrun apartment in Molenbeek. In conjunction with the Belgian police, the Mista'arvim raided the Molenbeek apartment, clearing it of criminals and finding a bloodstain in the room where Ayub was interrogated. The Israelis feared Ayub dead, but Doron held out hope as long as Ayub's death was unconfirmed.
Desperate for vengeance, Doron and his team concocted a plan. While Eli and the rest of the team went after Omar's cousin Adel Tawalbe in Jenin as he planned terrorist attacks from the West Bank, Doron and Shin Bet used deepfake messages of Omar to reach out to his cousin, the policewoman Maya Binyamin, and persuaded her to deliver two European passports to Omar's wife Aisha in Fnaidek, Lebanon so that they could flee from both Israel and Hezbollah. Doron went undercover as "Salim al-Hamis", an associate of Omar, and persuaded Maya to come to Lebanon with him to rescue her brother. They were smuggled into Syria by a Druze driver, entered Lebanon while pretending to be Syrian refugees from Daraa, and fought their way past a Hezbollah checkpoint after Hezbollah leader Haj Ali caught wind of their identities. The two made their way to Fnaidek, where Aisha agreed to go with Maya to meet Omar and deliver the passports. However, Doron crashed his car into the Hezbollah truck taking them to headquarters, and he killed the two guards and took Aisha and Maya as hostages before luring Omar into coming to free them. Doron took Omar captive as well, and Mossad deputy chief Rafael Leopold arranged for them to be taken to a safehouse in northern Lebanon run by Nimer. From there, Mossad intended to evacuate them to Lebanon, but Doron learned from Omar that Ayub was alive and held in Beirut's Sharifi neighborhood. Doron refused to leave without Ayub, so Shin Bet put together the Mista'arvim team and inserted them on a beach; from there, they made it to the safehouse, where they planned a rescue mission. Disguised as Lebanese police, they intercepted Haj Ali's convoy as it attempted to cross the Syrian border at the Qalamoun checkpoint, from which Haj Ali intended to drive to an airport where an Iranian plane would take Ayub to an Iranian prison, far beyond Israel's reach. Doron killed Haj Ali and rescued Ayub, while his team made it out without a casualty. As the team prepared to board the exfil helicopter, however, Ayub stole Doron's gun and shot Omar out of revenge for Omar's betrayal, and Omar died of his wounds; the Israelis left with Aisha, Maya, and Omar's body.
Back in Israel, Adel Tawalbe initiated a series of missile attacks meant to lure Israel into war with Lebanon; 8 Israelis were killed. Desperate to lure out Adel, the Mista'arvim team decided to hand over Omar's body to the Palestinian Authority so that he could receive a hero's funeral in Jenin, where Adel would likely be in attendance. Doron made repeated attempts to apologize to Maya, but she spurned him each time. Doron and his team proceeded to dress as Hamas fighters and steal Omar's body from the morgue before Maya and her mother could retrieve it for a private burial, and the Israeli undercover agents staged a Hamas funeral procession in Jenin. Adel and his men arrived to steal back the body, but, when Doron took Maya aside and warned her to take her mother and leave, Maya shouted out that the Hamas militants were Jewish special forces, and a shootout ensued. The Israelis pursued Adel to his hideout, from which he and his militants inflicted heavy losses on the IDF. Doron and his team then attacked the building, and Eli, Steve, and Sagi were wounded by sniper fire while Doron and his teammate Shani Russo charged into the building and stabbed Adel dead. Both Doron and Shani were wounded during the taking of the building, and they then headed outside and killed the Hezbollah fighters who attempted to take away the wounded Israelis. The entire squad then lay side-by-side, wounded from the shootout, with uncertain fates.