The assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh (Arabic: محمود المبحوح, Maḥmūd al-Mabḥūḥ; 14 February 1961 – 19 January 2010) took place on 19 January 2010, in a hotel room in Dubai. Al-Mabhouh—a co-founder of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas—was wanted by the Israeli government for the kidnapping and murder of two Israeli soldiers in 1989 as well as purchasing arms from Iran for use in Gaza; these have been cited as a possible motive for the assassination.^[1]

Assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh
Location	Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Date	19 January 2010
Target	Mahmoud al-Mabhouh
Attack type	Assassination
Weapons	Pillow, muscle relaxant
Deaths	1
Perpetrators	33 people, using forged and fraudulently obtained passports

His assassination attracted international attention in part due to allegations that it was ordered by the Israeli government and carried out by Mossad agents holding fake or fraudulently obtained passports from several European countries and Australia.

The photographs of the 26 suspects and their aliases were subsequently placed on Interpol's most-wanted list. The Dubai police found that 12 of the suspects used British passports, along with six Irish, four French, one German, and three Australian passports.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Interpol and the Dubai police believed that the suspects stole the identities of real people, mostly Israeli dual citizens.^[2][7] Two Palestinians, believed by Hamas to be former Fatah security officers and current employees of a senior Fatah official, were taken into custody in Dubai, on suspicions that one of them provided logistical assistance to the hit team. Despite Hamas's claim, Dubai would not comment on the incident or identify the two Palestinian suspects.

According to initial reports, Al-Mabhouh was drugged,^[8] then electrocuted and suffocated.^[4] Lt. Gen. Dhahi Khalfan Tamim of the Dubai Police Force said the suspects tracked Al-Mabhouh to Dubai from Damascus, Syria. They arrived from different European destinations and stayed at different hotels, presumably to avoid being detected and, with the exception of three of its members suspected of "helping to facilitate" who had left on a ferry for Iran several months before the assassination, departed after the assassination to different countries.^[9][4] Dubai's police chief said that he was "99% certain" that the assassination was the work of Israel's Mossad. On 1 March 2010, he stated that he was "sure" that all of the suspects are hiding in Israel.^[10][11]

He said that Dubai would ask for an arrest warrant to be issued for Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, if it is confirmed that the Mossad is involved and responsible for the assassination.^[12] The Hamas leadership also holds Israel responsible, and has vowed revenge.^[13] Hamas, which is itself on the U.S. State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, European Union lists of terrorist organizations, and also considered a terrorist organization by the governments of Israel,^[14] and Japan,^[15] as is its military arm by the United Kingdom^[16] and Australia,^[17] requested that Israel be added by the EU to its list because of suspicions that Israel was involved in the assassination.^[18]

However, later in March, Dubai police chief said, "I am now completely sure that it was Mossad", and went on to say "I have presented the (Dubai) prosecutor with a request for the arrest of (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu and the head of Mossad" for the assassination.^[19] Khalfan would also suggest that a Hamas associate fed information to Mossad.^[20] This was denied by Hamas which blamed Fatah for helping the Mossad hit team.^[21]

In March 2010, the British foreign secretary, David Miliband, expelled an Israeli diplomat after the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency discovered that Israel had forged copies of British passports.^[22] On 24 May, the Australian government expelled an Israeli diplomat after concluding that there was "no doubt Israel was behind the forgery of four Australian passports" related to the assassination.^[23] Similar action was taken by Ireland.^[24] Israel has refused to comment on the accusations that its security forces were behind the assassination.^[4]

On 30 September 2010, Dubai's police chief Dahi Khalfan said he received death threats from Israel's spy agency Mossad linked to his role in uncovering details of the assassination of al-Mabhouh, but whether such calls existed remains unconfirmed.^[25][26][27]

Sequence of events

On 19 January 2010, al-Mabhouh was assassinated in his room in a hotel in Dubai, after being tracked by at least 29 suspects (26 suspects whose passport photos have been released, two arrested Palestinians, and another unnamed suspect),^[29] 26 of whom carried forged or fraudulently-obtained passports from various European nations.

The Sunday Times reported that al-Mabhouh's departure from Damascus to Dubai on Emirates Flight no. 912 at 10:05 on 19 January 2010 was tracked by an agent on the ground in Damascus.^[30] Salah Bardawil, a Hamas legislator, said al-Mabhouh put himself at risk by booking his trip online and informing family in Gaza of the telephone number of the hotel at which he would be staying on his trip.^[31]

Despite reports that al-Mabhouh traveled under a false passport with the fake name "Mahmoud Abdul Raouf Mohammed",^[9][30][32] Hamas and Dubai officials maintain that al-Mabhouh entered the country under his own identity at 15:15.^[33][34] Normally al-Mabhouh would have been protected by bodyguards, but their arrival was delayed because the guards could not get tickets for the same flight, as "There was no room for them on the flight," said Talal Nasser, a spokesman for Hamas in Damascus. "Therefore, he traveled alone, and the security guards were slated to join him the next day."^[35]

According to a 2018 article by Le Monde citing senior French intelligence officials, the Mossad ran the operation to kill Mabhouh out of Paris. The Mossad allegedly set up a makeshift command and control center in a hotel in the Bercy neighborhood of Paris equipped with computers and secure phones.^[36] Dubai's police chief, Lt Gen Dahi Khalfan Tamim, stated that al-Mabhouh was transiting in Dubai before traveling to China.^[37] Upon arrival in Dubai, al-Mabhouh took a taxi to the Al Bustan Rotana Hotel and settled into room 230.^[38] He had asked for a room with no balcony and sealed windows, so no one could enter other than through the door. He left the hotel between 16:30 and 17:00, roughly an hour after checking in.^[39] What he did during the next three to four hours remains unclear. Dubai's police chief said he did not meet anyone in the emirate and that he went shopping.^[37] Meanwhile, the hit squad broke into his room. At 20:24 al-Mabhouh came back to the room,^[38] and subsequently failed to answer a call from his wife half an hour later.^[39]

Hotel surveillance footage was released to the public showing the suspects, who had arrived on separate flights, meeting in the hotel. While the suspects apparently used personal encrypted communication devices among themselves to avoid surveillance,^[40] the suspects were alleged by Dubai police to have sent and received a number of SMS messages to telephone numbers in Austria. When al-Mabhouh arrived around 15:00, two suspects dressed in tennis attire followed him to determine which room he had checked into, as well as the number of the room immediately across the hall.

The information is alleged by the Dubai police to have been communicated to a third party, who then telephoned from a different hotel to book room 237.

According to surveillance videos, the individual who checked into 237 did not enter the room, but appears to have given the room key to an accomplice in the lobby of the hotel, and immediately left Dubai, prior to the assassination. Al-Mabhouh, later, left the hotel and while several of the suspects kept watch, it is thought that (a) suspect(s) tried to gain entry to his room.

One of the lookout suspects could be seen on video delaying a tourist who exits the elevator on the second floor at this time, apparently to give other team members time to act. While another suspect distracted the tourist, it is claimed that four suspects entered the victim's hotel room and waited for him to return.

The evidence for this is the fact that four men arrived by elevator and entered the hallway where the victim's room and the alleged perpetrator's rooms were located at this time, and the same four men immediately left after the assassination is supposed to have happened.^{[citation needed]}

A readout of activity that took place on the hotel room's electronic door lock indicated that an attempt was made to reprogram al-Mabhouh's electronic door lock at this time.^{[citation needed]} The investigators believe that the electronic lock on al-Mabhouh's door may have been reprogrammed and that the killers gained entry to his room this way.^[41] The locks in question, VingCard Locklink brand,^[42] can be accessed and reprogrammed directly at the hotel room door.

According to Dubai Police, he was dead by 21:00 that evening.^[34] On 20 January 2010, the following day, a hotel cleaner attempted to gain entry, but found that the door was latched from the inside. A member of hotel security was then called in to open the door. After the door was opened, al-Mabhouh's body was discovered on the bed.^[9][30][43] On the drawer next to the bed, the assassins had placed a small bottle of medicine to make it appear as if he had died of natural causes.

Investigation

Cause of deathedit

Initially, Dubai authorities believed al-Mabhouh had died of natural causes.^[44] Fawzi Benomran, the Dubai police coroner, said, "It was meant to look like death from natural causes during sleep." It took 10 days for the Dubai police to come to the conclusion that al-Mabhouh was assassinated. Benomran described the determination of the exact cause of death as "one of the most challenging cases" his department faced.^[45]

The Khaleej Times quoted an unnamed senior police official as saying that four masked assailants had shocked al-Mabhouh's legs before using a pillow to suffocate him.^[46] Another story reported by Uzi Mahnaimi stated that a hit team murdered al-Mabhouh with a heart-attack inducing drug, then proceeded to take photographs of his documents before leaving.^[30]

Al-Mabhouh's family said that medical teams who examined his body determined that he died in his hotel room after being strangled and receiving a massive electric shock to the head, and that blood samples examined by a French laboratory confirms that electrocution was the cause of death.^[43] According to Reuters news agency, traces of poison were found in al Mabhouh's autopsy.^[47] Dubai authorities stated they were ruling the death a homicide and were working with the International Criminal Police Organization to investigate the incident.^[48]

Other news reports gave varying causes of death, including suffocation with a pillow and poisoning.^[49][50][51] In an international press conference General Tamim, the head of the investigation, said that the exact cause of death is yet to be concluded.^[52]

Moreover, on 1 March 2010, the Dubai Police stated that he was first drugged.^[53]

Major General Khamis Mattar al-Mazeina as the deputy commander of Dubai's police gave details of the death of al-Mabhouh after forensic tests. Al-Mabhouh was injected in his leg with succinylcholine, a quick-acting, depolarizing paralytic muscle relaxant.^[54] It causes almost-instant loss of motor skills, but does not induce loss of consciousness or anaesthesia.^[9][54] Then al-Mabhouh was suffocated. Al-Mazeina said, "The assassins used this method so that it would seem that his death was natural."^[55]

Suspects

Dubai's police chief, Lt. Gen. Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, announced his preliminary conclusions on 18 February that, "Our investigations reveal that Mossad is involved in the murder of al-Mabhouh ... It is 99% if not 100% that Mossad is standing behind the murder."^[45][56] After identifying the assumed names and photographs of 11 suspects, on 20 February 2010, he said his force had evidence directly incriminating the Mossad in the murder, adding that among the new evidence available were telephone communications between the suspected killers.^[57] On 24 February 2010, Dubai police identified 15 additional persons suspected of being involved in al-Mabhouh's assassination.^[58][59] According to journalist Uzi Mahnaimi, the decision to kill al-Mabhouh was authorized by Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, after being suggested by Meir Dagan, the head of the Mossad, at a meeting in early January 2010.^[60] Later in March, Dubai police chief said "I am now completely sure that it was Mossad," and furthermore went on to say "I have presented the (Dubai) prosecutor with a request for the arrest of (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu and the head of Mossad," for the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.^[19]

Dubai police said the assassins spent little time in the emirate, arriving less than a day before the assassination, killing al-Mabhouh between his arrival at 3:15 p.m. and 9 p.m. that night, and subsequently leaving the country before his discovery.^[34] The identities used by 11 of the suspects have been made public.^[61] The total number of suspects stands at 18, all of whom entered the country using fake or fraudulently obtained passports.^[5][62] Dubai police, who stated that their airport personnel were trained by Europeans to identify faked documents, said that the European passports used were not forgeries.^[63] British, Canadian, and Irish governments said the passports bearing their countries' names were, "either fraudulently obtained or [are] outright fakes."^[64] All the stolen passports are from countries that do not need visas for the UAE.^[65]

• United Kingdom: Six passports with the names Paul John Keely, Stephan Daniel Hodes, Melvyn Adam Mildiner, Jonathan Louis Graham, James Leonard Clarke, and Michael Lawrence Barney,^[66] and another six passports with the names Daniel Marc Schnur, Gabriella Barney, Roy Allan Cannon, Stephen Keith Drake, Mark Sklur, and Philip Carr.^[67] On 24 May 2010, another British suspect was publicized - Briton Christopher Lockwood.^[68] It was later discovered that this suspect had stolen the identity of an Israeli soldier who was killed in the Yom Kippur War.^[69]
• Republic of Ireland : Three passports with the names Gail Folliard, Kevin Daveron, and Evan Dennings and another three with the names Ivy Brinton, Anna Shauna Clasby, and Chester Halvey.^[67] Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs declared that the passports used by the suspects were counterfeit^[70] and stated that it was "unable to identify any of those three individuals as being genuine Irish". According to the department, Ireland has never issued passports in those names.^[71] While the names and signatures were fake, the numbers on the passports were genuine, and belong to Irish citizens.^[5] Four of the five citizens have been contacted by the Department of Foreign Affairs, all of whom live in Ireland; none of them have travelled to the Middle East, lost their passports or had them stolen.^[5]
• France: One passport with the name Peter Elvinger (suspected of being used by the hit squad leader,^[72] and logistical coordinator), plus another three passports with the names David Bernard LaPierre, Mélanie Heard, and Eric Rassineux.^[67][73] According to a spokesman of the French Foreign Affairs ministry, the passport in the name of Elvinger was counterfeit.^[74] The French government summoned the Israeli chargé d'affaires in Paris on 18 February and the French Foreign Ministry issued a statement expressing, "deep concern about the malicious and fraudulent use of these French administrative documents."^[75]
• Germany: One passport with the name Michael Bodenheimer.^[73] German officials initially said that the passport number which they received from the authorities in Dubai is either incomplete or does not exist.^[76] Later, it was revealed that the passport was genuine. According to German federal investigators, an Israeli man named Michael Bodenheimer acquired German citizenship in June 2008 after providing immigration officials in Cologne with the pre-World War II address of his grandparents and his parents' marriage certificate.^[77][78] He stated that he was an Israeli citizen and gave his address as a temporary "virtual office" that he had bought in Herzliya (as of 22 February the office does not exist anymore).^[78] A Michael Bodenheimer who lives in Israel and holds dual American and Israeli citizenships said he does not know how his identity was stolen.^[77] One person who has the passport name Uri Brodsky was arrested in Poland in early June 2010. He was in Cologne with Michael Bodenheimer and Germany is seeking his extradition.^[79] See sub-heading "Alexander Verin/Uri Brodsky" below for more information.
• Australia: Three passports with the names Nicole Sandra Mccabe (who at the time was heavily pregnant according to her mother^[80]), Adam Korman and Joshua Aaron Krycer.^[81][82][83] Adam Marcus Korman, an Israeli-Australian citizen living in Israel, said that he was shocked and angry that his identity was stolen.^[84] In addition, the other three names are names of residents of Israel.^[85] A man named Joshua Krycer works in a hospital located in Jerusalem.^[86][87][88]

The names used on the British passports belong to suspects who live in Israel and hold dual citizenships.^[89] An analysis of the assassination in The Jewish Chronicle noted that this, "is the first real piece of information that could link Israel to the operation."^[90] According to Palestine Chronicle Post, Mossad is known to use the identities of Israelis with dual citizenship. In 1997, two Mossad agents traveled with Canadian passports of dual citizenship Israelis to Amman in a botched attempt on the life of Hamas leader Khaled Mashal.^[91] According to former katsa Victor Ostrovsky, a Canadian citizen, the Mossad formerly asked permission to use the passports of Israelis with dual nationality, but "I believe at some point, they stopped asking."^[92]

A Jerusalem-based British citizen whose name was used on one of the passports told Reuters news agency that he has never been to Dubai and had no connection with the Mossad or the killing. He said that he did not "know how this happened or who chose my name or why".^[93] In addition, three other Israelis whose names appeared on the passports reported to the Israeli Channel 2 news that they did not understand the coincidence, and were not related at all to the suspects.^[76][94] In the wake of the revelation that passports of British citizens had figured prominently in the operation, the United Kingdom's Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) launched its own investigation into the matter,^[95] and plans to interview the first round of British passport holders that had their identities stolen.^[96] The British Foreign Office also summoned the Israeli ambassador on 18 February to share information on the matter.^[97][98] The British government denied claims that Mossad had tipped off the UK that their passports would be used for an operation.^[99]

The photographs of 11 of the suspected killers were added to Interpol's most wanted list on 18 February, with a note specifying that they had been published since the identities adopted by the suspects were faked. Dubai airport officials carried out routine retinal scans on 11 of the suspects sought in the assassination when they entered the country and Dubai police said they would publish the scans through Interpol.^[100]

YNetNews said some hit squad members fled to Iran after the assassination.^[101]

Seventeen of the suspects used MasterCards branded by MetaBank of Storm Lake, Iowa but issued by Payoneer Inc which were used to buy their plane tickets in other countries before their arrival in Dubai.^{[102][103][104][105][106]} Other credit cards show ties to Britain's Nationwide Building Society, IDT Finance of Gilbraltar, and Germany's DZ Bank AG.^[107] Payoneer is an Israeli start-up now based in New York with R&D offices and a majority of its employees in Tel Aviv. CEO Yuval Tal, is a former member of the IDF Special Forces. Payoneer is held by three venture capital firms: Greylock Partners, Carmel Ventures, and Crossbar Capital. Greylock, which has offices in the U.S. and Herzliya, Israel, was established by Moshe Mor, a former military intelligence captain in the Israeli army. Carmel Ventures is an Israeli venture capital fund based in Herzliya. Crossbar Partners is run by Charlie Federman, who is also managing director of the BRM Group, a venture capital fund also in Herzliya that was co-founded by Nir Barkat, the former mayor of Jerusalem. Mossad HQ are located in Herzliya.^[108]

The New York Post originally reported that Tal has disappeared since his company was identified as the issuer of some of the killers' credit cards, with his Brooklyn neighbors telling the NYPD that he left the country.^[109] He reappeared a day later, however.^[110]

The Dubai Police has found the DNA of one person and some fingerprints of other persons which are suspected.^[111] The chief of Dubai Police Lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim said that there are 648 hours of video films in which the 27 suspected persons are appearing^[112] and announced that the police has found the DNA of four suspected agents.^[113]

Arrests

Two Palestinians, Ahmad Hasnin, an intelligence operative of the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA), and Anwar Shekhaiber, an employee of the PA in Ramallah, were arrested in Jordan and handed over to Dubai as suspected accomplices to the assassination, suspected of giving logistical assistance such as providing car rentals and hotel bookings.^[9][114] Hamas claimed that their arrest was evidence linking the Palestinian Authority to the killing, while the Palestinian Authority retorted by accusing the arrested Palestinians of being members of Hamas.^[115]

The two men are reported to be related to one another and to have lived in Gaza until Hamas took over full control of the Strip in 2006. One went straight to Dubai, while the other joined him after first going to Ramallah, where he was sentenced to death by a Palestinian Authority court, a punishment generally handed down to Israeli collaborators.^[116] The recruitment of Ahmad Hasnin by the Mossad could have been done when he was imprisoned by Israel for a month in June 2007 for his involvement with Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the military wing for Fatah. He came to the UAE in 2008, according to a family source.^[117]

Dubai authorities said that one of the two Palestinians held in custody met a suspect in a suspicious place, time and manner, while the second is closely related to him and was found to have already been sentenced to death by one of the Palestinian parties. The second suspect is wanted by Hamas. They are both being held to ensure that no one comes to execute them.^[118]

A Haaretz report based on information from an unnamed Arab diplomatic source said that Dubai police had asked Syria to detain Mohammed Nasser and other Hamas men for questioning. According to media reports, Nasser was in Dubai in the days before al-Mabhouh's killing and was intimately familiar with his schedule and whereabouts.^[119]

Dubai Police chief Dahi Khalfan said on 3 March 2010 he requested for the Dubai prosecutor to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of Mossad, Meir Dagan for the murder.^[120]

He also announced Canada had arrested a suspect who "was among the preparatory group which arrived in the country and left it before the crime was committed." The suspect was reported to be one amongst a number of suspects for whom Interpol has issued red corner notices on behalf of the UAE.^[121] The following day, however, the Canadian embassy in the UAE denied this but said they were liaising with authorities back in Canada to verify the status of the arrest.^[122]

Alexander Verin/Uri Brodsky

On 4 June 2010, Polish police arrested a man at Warsaw airport carrying a false passport with the name Uri Brodsky, who was wanted by German authorities.^[123] A European Arrest Warrant from Germany specified that Brodsky, also known as Alexander Verin (or Varin), was "suspected of being involved in illegally obtaining a [German] passport" for another man known as Michael Bodenheimer, who is alleged to have taken part in Mahmoud al-Mabhouh's murder.^[124] A Polish court approved Brodsky's extradition to Germany on 7 July, pending appeal.^[125][126] However, the extradition was approved on the basis that Brodsky would not face German charges of espionage – instead he would only face the lesser charge of falsely-obtaining documents.^[127] Brodsky was transferred to German custody on 12 August, released on €100,000 bail on 13 August, and flown back to Israel on 14 August.^[128][129] The German prosecutor indicated that Brodsky would not have to face trial after all, but instead that "the matter can now be dealt with by written proceedings," most likely resulting in a fine.^[130] At the end of 2010, Germany suspended the case of falsifying documents in lieu of a €60,000 fine; however, a German arrest warrant on the espionage charges remains in effect.^[131]

Arrest of a top suspectedit

On 11 October 2010, The National of Abu Dhabi published an interview with Dubai's police chief Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, in which he claims that a western country had arrested a top suspect of killing al-Mabhouh about two months earlier. The ambassador of the western country does not want to name the country and the name of the arrested suspect. Tamim expressed frustration at the lack of detail: "Why is it that every time an Israeli is involved in a crime, everyone goes mute? We want anyone who is dealing with this case to deal with it as a security case, and not to pay attention to any other consideration."^{[132][133][134]}

Reactions

Countries

•  United Arab Emirates – Sheik Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Foreign Minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) said, "The abuse of passports poses a global threat, affecting both countries' national security as well as the personal security of travelers."^[135] He also said that those responsible would be brought to account, noting that, "The UAE firmly believes that relations among nations should be conducted on the basis of respect for sovereignty, mutual trust and within the framework of international norms. Like all civilised nations, we abide by these principles and we will deal with this criminal act within the international framework expected of civilised nations."^[136] Anwar Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, expressed the country's deep concern that expertly doctored passports from nations that do not require advance visas were used by the suspected killers. UAE officials said they remained in "close contact with the concerned European governments," listing the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany and Austria.^[135] Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim said on 1 March 2010, during the International Security National Resilience Exhibition & Conference at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, that the police of the UAE will develop the skills to identify persons who are Israelis. So the police will deny the entry of any person as a suspected Israeli.^[137]
•  United Kingdom – Britain's Foreign Office believes that the passports used were fraudulent;^[76] one report indicated that they had issued the passports in January 2010, the only difference between the actual identities being the photographs.^[138] The Telegraph reported on 20 February that diplomatic sources say that the passport fraud was carried out by Israeli immigration officials. It is claimed that the dual Israeli-British citizens had their passports taken from them as they passed through the airport in Tel Aviv – the details on the documents were recorded (and they were most likely photocopied), and then used to create new documents. These new documents sported the pictures of the suspects, but used the names and numbers of those whose identities were stolen.^[139] As a result of an investigation by the British Serious Organised Crime Agency, the government concluded that there were "compelling evidence to believe that Israel was responsible for the misuse of the British passports."^[140] The British Foreign Secretary David Miliband expelled a senior Israeli diplomat, who was thought to be the Mossad's station commander in the country.^{[141][142][143][144]} Britain also issued a warning to British passport holders traveling to Israel to "only hand your passport over to third parties including Israeli officials when absolutely necessary".^[145] Israel had already used fake British passports to conduct an operation in 1987.
•  France – François Fillon, the French Prime Minister, said that though it remained unclear as to who was responsible, "France condemns assassination. Assassination is not a means of action in international relations."^[146] The Israeli chargé d'affaires in Paris was summoned on 18 February and the French Foreign Ministry issued a statement expressing, "deep concern about the malicious and fraudulent use of these French administrative documents."^[75] The French counterintelligence agency DCRI is believed to have protested to Mossad after finding it had used a Paris hotel as a base to stage the assassination.^[147] According to a Le Monde report, France was concerned that Hamas would suspect French involvement in the assassination due to the operation having been run out of Paris and the use of forged French passports, and suspended intelligence sharing with Israel.^[36]
•  Austria – The spokesman for the Austrian Interior Ministry confirmed that Austria is investigating the use of Austrian mobile phones by the suspected killers.
•  Canada – The Royal Canadian Mounted Police denied an accusation from the Police Chief of the Emirate of Dubai that made an arrest in the case. A spokeswoman for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said that because the probe was a foreign investigation it would be "inappropriate" to comment.^[148]
•  Germany – Germany confirmed that it is actively pursuing information on the identity of the killers of al-Mabhouh.^[149] The German federal prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe began investigations about foreign spy activities in connection with the German passport used by one suspect in Dubai.^[150] The German Federal Intelligence Service told members of the German parliament that apparently the Mossad executed the operation in Dubai. According to Der Spiegel, the Mossad operation could be considered as an affront to the Germans since the current head of German intelligence, Ernst Uhrlau has been acting at the behest of the Israeli government as a liaison between Jerusalem and Hamas. He sought the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was abducted by Palestinian militants in 2006 in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by the Israelis. Urhrlau was in Israel just a few days before 19 January. By then the Dubai operation was certainly under way.^[151]
•  Ireland – Investigations by Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs Passport Service and by the Garda Síochána concluded that eight Irish passports were used in the assassination, and all were forgeries (but based on information from valid passports). Irish citizens whose information had been used were issued with new passports. Dubai Police had Interpol issue red notices (arrest warrants) for Jael Foliard, Kevien Daverone, Ivy Broton, Evan Denengz and Anna Shauna Clasby, all of whom entered Dubai on forged Irish passports. Ireland's Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin in a statement issued on 15 June 2010 said the Irish government had come to the "inescapable conclusion" that Israel was responsible for the forged passports used in the al-Mabhouh assassination, noting Israel did not assist in his country's investigations and did not deny involvement.^{[citation needed]}
•  Iran – On 2 February, the Iranian foreign ministry blamed Israel for the incident, stating, "This is another indication of the existence of state terrorism by the Zionist regime".^[152]
•  Australia – On 25 February, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, said that any country that so abused Australian passports held Australia in contempt, stating, "we will not let the matter lie."^[65] In a meeting with Israeli Ambassador Yuval Rotem, Foreign Affairs Minister, Stephen Smith, made it "crystal clear" that if it was concluded that Israeli officials had condoned or sponsored the abuse of the Australian passports, "Australia would not regard that as the act of a friend".^[153] Soon after this occurred, Australia abstained on a UN motion to investigate alleged Israeli war crimes committed during the Gaza War, a motion that Australia had previously opposed. In the Australian press there was widespread speculation that the move was retaliation for the passport affair, although this was denied by the Australian government.^[154] In response to the incident, Australia expelled a Mossad agent who had been working in the Israeli embassy in Canberra on 24 May 2010.^[155] Foreign Minister Stephen Smith was quoted as saying that Australian passports had been misused by Israel on previous occasions, and the decision to expel the Mossad agent "was made much more in sorrow than in anger".^[155][156]
•  Lebanon – Key Hezbollah members became nervous after the killing in Dubai. Since foreign passports were seemingly used for the attack, Hezbollah asked the Lebanese government for additional screening of foreigners entering Lebanon.^[157]
•  Sweden – Foreign Minister Carl Bildt stated that "misuse of European passports is not to be tolerated".^[158]
•  Luxembourg – Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn stated that "political assassinations have no place in the 21st century".^[158]
•  Spain – Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos stated that his country was "extremely concerned".^[158]
•  Israel – The Israeli government initially did not comment on claims that it was involved in al-Mabhouh's death.^[152] On 17 February, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman refused to confirm or deny any Israeli involvement, and noted a lack of solid evidence for Israeli involvement.^[159] On 24 February, The Jerusalem Post quoted the Israeli Opposition leader Tzipi Livni as saying, "Every terrorist must know that no one will support him when a soldier, and it doesn't matter what soldier, tries to kill him."^[160] Israeli media and public opinion has generally accepted Mossad's responsibility for the operation.^[161] Due to Israel's military censorship laws the Israeli media at first were careful to use the phrase "according to foreign media reports" to avoid directly accusing Mossad, however the phrase was abandoned and Mossad's culpability was openly assumed after the first week of the scandal.^[162] Opinions of the Israeli media were divided between approving of the success of al-Mabhouh's killing and disapproving the sloppiness of the operation and the resultant exposure and media scandal. Haaretz's Amir Oren called Dagan to be fired due to what he considered a sloppy job,^[163] while the newspaper's Yossi Melman predicted Israel would emerge from the incident "unblemished".^[164] After the United Kingdom expelled an Israeli diplomat over the use of British passports, Israeli right wing politicians commented against Britain's "disloyal" action. Knesset member Michael Ben-Ari stated that "This is anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Zionism". Israeli politician Aryeh Eldad stated that "Britain's behavior is hypocritical. Who are they to judge us in the war on terror?" Other than non-official comments made by right wing politicians, Israel has not officially responded.^[165]
•  United States – On 28 December 2010, leaked diplomatic cables showed that Dubai considered keeping the assassination secret, and asked the United States to help track down information on credit card numbers suspected of having been used by the assassins.^[166] The United States did not cooperate with the investigation.^[167]

Palestinian

The day following al-Mabhouh's death, Hamas' armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, announced that he died of terminal cancer in a hospital in the United Arab Emirates.^[168]

On 29 January, Hamas' deputy politburo chief Moussa Abu Marzouk said, "Mossad agents are those who assassinated al-Mabhouh".^[169] Top Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar speculated that same day that it was possible that members of the entourage of Israeli infrastructure minister Uzi Landau, who were in the United Arab Emirates at the time for a renewable energy conference, were involved in his killing.^[170][171] Landau dismissed the claim, stating that his delegation was in Abu Dhabi, some 120 km from Dubai, and was escorted by an eight-man UAE security team at all times.^[172][173]

On 2 February, Hamas' representative in Lebanon Osama Hamdan said that Palestinian Authority security forces might have been involved in the death, stating that, "The Palestinian Authority security forces are pursuing [our] fighters and they have killed dozens of them since 1994."^[174] Haaretz reported that details from a preliminary Hamas investigation procured by the newspaper suggested that al-Mabhouh was assassinated by agents of an Arab government, and that al-Mabhouh was wanted by Egypt and Jordan.^[175] On 12 February, senior Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal rejected reports that Hamas blamed Arab states for al-Mabhouh's death, and said the Israeli Mossad was solely responsible.^[176]

On 19 February, Hamas representatives said that the two Palestinians arrested in Dubai, Ahmad Hassanain and Anwar Shheibar, are former members of Fatah's security forces and work at a construction company in Dubai owned by Mohammed Dahlan, a senior Fatah security official. A senior Hamas official told Al-Hayat newspaper that the two provided logistical aid to the Mossad hit team alleged to have carried out the murder, renting them cars and hotel rooms. The two were linked to a Gaza death cell under Dahlan's command, which worked to suppress dissidence among Palestinians.^[177] Dahlan and Fatah denied the charges.^[178]

European Union

EU foreign ministers "strongly condemned" the use of forged European passports in the killing.^[179][180]

United Nations

Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings was quoted by the Los Angeles Times as stating, "If a foreign intelligence agency was responsible for the killing of al-Mabhouh, the matter should clearly be classified as an extrajudicial execution. There is no legal justification for the cold-blooded murder of a man who, if alleged to have committed crimes, could have been arrested and charged."^[181

Mossad

The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (Hebrew: המוסד למודיעין ולתפקידים מיוחדים ha-Mosád le-Modiʿín u-le-Tafkidím Meyuḥadím), popularly known as Mossad^[a] (UK: /ˈmɒsæd/ MOSS-ad; US: /moʊˈsɑːd/ moh-SAHD), is the national intelligence agency of the State of Israel. It is one of the main entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with Aman (military intelligence) and Shin Bet (internal security).

Mossad is responsible for intelligence collection, covert operations, and counter-terrorism. Its director answers directly and only to the Prime Minister. Its annual budget is estimated to be around ₪10 billion (US$2.73 billion), and it is estimated that it employs around 7,000 people, making it one of the world's largest espionage agencies.^[1] 

History of Mossad

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mossad

Mossad was formed on December 13, 1949, as the Central Institute for Coordination at the recommendation of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to Reuven Shiloah. Ben Gurion wanted a central body to coordinate and improve cooperation between the existing security services—the army's intelligence department (AMAN), the Internal Security Service (Shin Bet), and the Political Intelligence Service (Mossad).^[2][3][4] The central body governing the three security services was Va'adat;^[4] today it is the Ministry of Intelligence.^[5]

In March 1951, it was reorganized and incorporated into the prime minister's office, reporting directly to the Prime Minister of Israel.^[3] Due to Mossad's accountability directly to the prime minister and not to the Knesset, journalist Ronen Bergman has described Mossad as a "deep state".^[6]

In the 1990s, Aliza Magen-Halevi became the highest-ranking woman in Mossad's history when she served as the agency's deputy director under Shabtai Shavit and Danny Yatom.^[7]

Heads of Mossad

• Reuven Shiloah, 1949–53
• Isser Harel, 1953–63
• Meir Amit, 1963–68
• Zvi Zamir, 1968–73
• Yitzhak Hofi, 1973–82
• Nahum Admoni, 1982–89
• Shabtai Shavit, 1989–96
• Danny Yatom, 1996–98
• Efraim Halevy, 1998–2002
• Meir Dagan, 2002–11
• Tamir Pardo, 2011–16
• Yossi Cohen, 2016–21
• David Barnea, 2021–present

Organisation of Mossad

Divisions

The organizational structure of the Mossad is officially classified. Mossad is organized into divisions, led by a director who is equivalent to a major general in the Israel Defense Forces.^[8]

• Tzomet: Mossad's largest division, staffed with case officers called katsas tasked with conducting espionage overseas and running agents.^[9] Employees in Tzomet operate under a variety of covers, including diplomatic and unofficial. The division was led from 2006 to 2011 by Yossi Cohen^[10] and from 2013 to 2019 by David Barnea, both of whom later served as Mossad directors.^[11]
• Caesarea: conducts special operations and houses the Kidon (Hebrew: כידון, "bayonet", "javelin" or a "spear") unit, an elite group of assassins.^[12]
• Keshet ("Rainbow"): electronic surveillance, break-ins, and wiretapping^[8]
• Human Resources^[8]
• A special unit called Metsada allegedly runs "small units of combatants" whose missions include "assassinations and sabotage".^{[13][better source needed]}

Venture capital

Mossad opened a venture capital fund in June 2017,^[14] to invest in high-tech startups to develop new cyber technologies.^[15] The names of technology startups funded by Mossad are not published.^[15]

Personnel

Katsa

A katsa is a field intelligence officer of the Mossad.^[16] The word katsa is a Hebrew acronym for Hebrew: קצין איסוף, romanized: ktsin issuf, "intelligence officer", literally "gathering officer". A katsa is a case officer who runs agents to clandestinely collect intelligence.

Kidon

The kidon are Mossad's elite assassins. Recruits receive two years of training at Mossad's training facility near Herzliya.^[9]

Sayanim

Sayanim (Hebrew: סייענים, lit. helpers, assistants)^[17] are unpaid Jewish civilians who help Mossad out of a sense of devotion to Israel.^[18] They are recruited by Mossad's field agents, katsas, to provide logistical support for Mossad operations.^[9] A sayan running a rental agency, for instance, could help Mossad agents rent a car without the usual documentation.^[19][20] The usage of sayanim allows the Mossad to operate with a slim budget yet conduct vast operations worldwide.^[21] Sayanim can have dual citizenships but are often not Israeli citizens.^[22][23]

According to Gordon Thomas, there were 4,000 sayanim in Britain and some 16,000 in the United States in 1998.^[19]

Israeli students called bodlim are often used as gofers for Mossad.^[24]

Mossad's Motto

Mossad's former motto, be-tachbūlōt ta`aseh lekhā milchāmāh (Hebrew: בתחבולות תעשה לך מלחמה) is a quote from the Bible (Proverbs 24:6): "For by wise guidance you can wage your war" (NRSV). The motto was later<sup>[when?]</sup> changed to another Proverbs passage: be-'éyn tachbūlōt yippol `ām; ū-teshū`āh be-rov yō'éts (Hebrew: באין תחבולות יפול עם, ותשועה ברוב יועץ, Proverbs 11:14). This is translated by NRSV as: "Where there is no guidance, a nation falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety."^[25]

Alleged operations

Operation Harpoon

Together with Shurat HaDin, Mossad^[when?] started Operation Harpoon, for "destroying terrorists' money networks".^[26][27]

Africa

Egypt

• Provision of intelligence for the cutting of communications between Port Said and Cairo in 1956.^{[citation needed]}
• Mossad spy Wolfgang Lotz, holding West German citizenship, infiltrated Egypt in 1957, and gathered intelligence on Egyptian missile sites, military installations, and industries. He also composed a list of German rocket scientists working for the Egyptian government, and sent some of them letter bombs. After the East German head of state made a state visit to Egypt, the Egyptian government detained thirty West German citizens as a goodwill gesture. Lotz, assuming that he had been discovered, confessed to his cold war espionage activities.^[28]
• After a tense May 25, 1967, confrontation with CIA Tel Aviv station chief John Hadden, who warned that the United States would help defend Egypt if Israel launched a surprise attack, Mossad director Meir Amit flew to Washington, D.C. to meet with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and reported back to the Israeli cabinet that the United States had given Israel "a flickering green light" to attack.^[29]
• Provision of intelligence on the Egyptian Air Force for Operation Focus, the opening air strike of the Six-Day War.
• Operation Bulmus 6 – Intelligence assistance in the Commando Assault on Green Island, Egypt during the War of Attrition.^{[citation needed]}
• Operation Damocles – A campaign of assassination and intimidation against German rocket scientists employed by Egypt in building missiles.^{[citation needed]}
  • A bomb sent to the Heliopolis rocket factory killed five Egyptian workers, allegedly sent by Otto Skorzeny on behalf of the Mossad.^[30]
  • Heinz Krug, 49, the chief of a Munich company supplying military hardware to Egypt disappeared in September 1962 and is believed to have been assassinated by Otto Skorzeny on behalf of the Mossad.^[30]

Morocco

In September 1956, Mossad established a secretive network in Morocco to smuggle Moroccan Jews to Israel after a ban on immigration to Israel was imposed.^[31]

In early 1991, two Mossad operatives infiltrated the Moroccan port of Casablanca and planted a tracking device on the freighter Al-Yarmouk, which was carrying a cargo of North Korean missiles bound for Syria. The ship was to be sunk by the Israeli Air Force, but the mission was later called off by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.^[32]

Tunisia

The 1988 killing of Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad), a founder of Fatah.^[33]

The alleged killing of Salah Khalaf, head of intelligence of the PLO and second in command of Fatah behind Yasser Arafat, in 1991.^[34]

The 2016 alleged killing of Hamas operative Mohamed Zouari in Tunisia. Known to Israel's security echelon as "The Engineer", he was a Hamas-affiliated engineer who was believed to be constructing drones for the group. He was shot at close range.^[35][36]

Uganda

For Operation Entebbe in 1976, Mossad provided intelligence regarding Entebbe International Airport^[37] and extensively interviewed hostages who had been released.^[38]

South Africa

In the late 1990s, after Mossad was tipped off to the presence of two Iranian agents in Johannesburg on a mission to procure advanced weapons systems from Denel, a Mossad agent was deployed, and met up with a local Jewish contact. Posing as South African intelligence, they abducted the Iranians, drove them to a warehouse, and beat and intimidated them before forcing them to leave the country.^[32]

Sudan

After the 1994 AMIA bombing, the largest bombing in Argentine history, Mossad began gathering intelligence for a raid by Israeli Special Forces on the Iranian embassy in Khartoum as retaliation. The operation was called off due to fears that another attack against worldwide Jewish communities might take place as revenge. Mossad also assisted in Operation Moses, the evacuation of Ethiopian Jews to Israel from a famine-ridden region of Sudan in 1984, also maintaining a relationship with the Ethiopian government.^{[citation needed]}

Americas

Argentina

In 1960, Mossad discovered that the Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann was in Argentina. A team of five Mossad agents led by Shimon Ben Aharon slipped into Argentina and, through surveillance, confirmed that he had been living there under the name of Ricardo Klement. He was abducted on May 11, 1960 and taken to a hideout. He was subsequently smuggled to Israel, where he was tried and executed. Argentina protested what it considered as a violation of its sovereignty, and the United Nations Security Council noted that "repetition of acts such as [this] would involve a breach of the principles upon which international order is founded, creating an atmosphere of insecurity and distrust incompatible with the preservation of peace" while also acknowledging that "Eichmann should be brought to appropriate justice for the crimes of which he is accused" and that "this resolution should in no way be interpreted as condoning the odious crimes of which Eichmann is accused."^[b][42] Mossad abandoned a second operation, intended to capture Josef Mengele.^[43]

United States

During the 1990s, Mossad discovered that a Hezbollah agent was operating inside the United States to procure materials needed to manufacture IEDs and other weapons. In a joint operation with U.S. intelligence, the Hezbollah agent was kept under surveillance in hopes that his communications would expose additional Hezbollah operatives. The agent was eventually arrested.^[32]

Mossad informed the FBI and CIA in August 2001 that, based on its intelligence, as many as 200 terrorists were slipping into the United States and planning "a major assault on the United States". The Israeli intelligence agency cautioned the FBI that it had picked up indications of a "large-scale target" in the United States and that Americans would be "very vulnerable".^[44] However, "It is not known whether U.S. authorities thought the warning to be credible, or whether it contained enough details to allow counter-terrorism teams to come up with a response." A month later, terrorists struck at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the largest terrorist attack in history.^[44]

The US journalists Dylan Howard, Melissa Cronin and James Robertson linked the Mossad to American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in their book Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales. They relied for the most part on the former Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe.^[45] According to him, Epstein's activities as a spy served to gather compromising material on powerful people in order to blackmail them.^[46] There is also a possible connection to the Mossad via Ghislaine Maxwell, whose father Robert Maxwell is said to have had contacts with the Mossad.^[47] Epstein's victim Virginia Giuffre also alleged Epstein to be an intelligence asset, linking on Twitter to a Reddit page, that alleged Epstein being a spy, running a blackmail operation.^[48]

Uruguay

In 1965, the Mossad assassinated Latvian Nazi collaborator Herberts Cukurs.^[49]

Asia

Central Asia and the Middle East

A report published on the Israeli military's official website in February 2014 said that Middle Eastern countries that cooperate with Israel (Mossad) are the United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, the Republic of Azerbaijan, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The report claimed that Bahrain has been providing Israel with intelligence on Iranian and Palestinian organizations. The report also highlights the growing secret cooperation with Saudi Arabia, claiming that Mossad has been in direct contact with Saudi intelligence about Iran’s nuclear energy program.^[50][51]

Iran

Prior to the Iranian Revolution of 1978–79, SAVAK (Organization of National Security and Information), the Iranian secret police and intelligence service was created under the guidance of United States and Israeli intelligence officers in 1957.^[52][53] After security relations between the United States and Iran grew more distant in the early 1960s which led the CIA training team to leave Iran, Mossad became increasingly active in Iran, "training SAVAK personnel and carrying out a broad variety of joint operations with SAVAK."^[54]

A US intelligence official told The Washington Post that Israel orchestrated the defection of Iranian general Ali Reza Askari on February 7, 2007.^[55] This has been denied by Israeli spokesman Mark Regev. The Sunday Times reported that Askari had been a Mossad asset since 2003, and left only when his cover was about to be blown.^[56]

Le Figaro claimed that Mossad was possibly behind a blast at the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's Imam Ali military base, on October 12, 2011. The explosion at the base killed 18 and injured 10 others. Among the dead was also general Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, who served as the commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ missile program and was a crucial figure in building Iran's long-range missile program.^[57] The base is believed to store long-range missiles, including the Shahab-3, and also has hangars. It is one of Iran's most secure military bases.^[58]

Mossad has been accused of assassinating Masoud Alimohammadi, Ardeshir Hosseinpour, Majid Shahriari, Darioush Rezaeinejad and Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan; scientists involved in the Iranian nuclear program. It is also suspected of being behind the attempted assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Fereydoon Abbasi.^[59] Meir Dagan, who served as Director of Mossad from 2002 until 2009, while not taking credit for the assassinations, praised them in an interview with a journalist, saying "the removal of important brains" from the Iranian nuclear project had achieved so-called "white defections", frightening other Iranian nuclear scientists into requesting that they be transferred to civilian projects.^[29]

In 2018 the Mossad infiltrated into Iran's secret nuclear archive in Tehran and smuggled over 100,000 documents and computer files to Israel. The documents and files showed that the Iranian AMAD Project aimed to develop nuclear weapons.^[60] Israel shared the information with its allies, including European countries and the United States.^[61]

Iraq

Assistance in the defection and rescuing of the family of Munir Redfa, an Iraqi pilot who defected and flew his MiG-21 to Israel in 1966: "Operation Diamond". Redfa's entire family was also successfully smuggled from Iraq to Israel. Previously unknown information about the MiG-21 was subsequently shared with the United States.

Operation Sphinx^[62] – Between 1978 and 1981, obtained highly sensitive information about Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor by recruiting an Iraqi nuclear scientist in France.

Operation Bramble Bush II – In the 1990s, Mossad began scouting locations in Iraq where Saddam Hussein could be ambushed by Sayeret Matkal commandos inserted into Iraq from Jordan. The mission was called off due to Operation Desert Fox and the ongoing Israeli-Arab peace process.

Jordan

In what is thought to have been a reprisal action for a Hamas suicide-bombing in Jerusalem on July 30, 1997 that killed 16 Israelis, Benjamin Netanyahu authorised an operation against Khaled Mashal, the Hamas representative in Jordan.^[63] On September 25, 1997, Mashal was injected in the ear with a toxin (thought to have been a derivative of the synthetic opiate Fentanyl called Levofentanyl).^[64][65] Jordanian authorities apprehended two Mossad agents posing as Canadian tourists and trapped a further six in the Israeli embassy. In exchange for their release, an Israeli physician had to fly to Amman and deliver an antidote for Mashal. The fallout from the failed killing eventually led to the release of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of the Hamas movement, and scores of Hamas prisoners. Netanyahu flew into Amman on September 29 to apologize personally to King Hussein, but he was instead met by the King's brother, Crown Prince Hassan.^[64]

Lebanon

The sending of letter bombs to PFLP member Bassam Abu Sharif in 1972. Sharif was severely wounded, but survived.^[66]

The killing of the Palestinian writer and leading PFLP member Ghassan Kanafani by a car bomb in 1972.^[67]

The provision of intelligence and operational assistance in the 1973 Operation Spring of Youth special forces raid on Beirut.

The targeted killing of Ali Hassan Salameh, the leader of Black September, on January 22, 1979 in Beirut by a car bomb.^[68][69]

Providing intelligence for the killing of Abbas al-Musawi, secretary general of Hezbollah, in southern Lebanon in 1992.^[70]

Allegedly killed Jihad Ahmed Jibril, the leader of the military wing of the PFLP-GC, in Beirut in 2002.^[71]

Allegedly killed Ali Hussein Saleh, member of Hezbollah, in Beirut in 2003.^[72]

Allegedly killed Ghaleb Awwali, a senior Hezbollah official, in Beirut in 2004.^[73]

Allegedly killed Mahmoud al-Majzoub, a leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in Sidon in 2006.^[74]

Mossad was suspected of establishing a large spy network in Lebanon, recruited from Druze, Christian, and Sunni Muslim communities, and officials in the Lebanese government, to spy on Hezbollah and its Iranian Revolutionary Guard advisors. Some have allegedly been active since the 1982 Lebanon War. In 2009, Lebanese Security Services supported by Hezbollah's intelligence unit, and working in collaboration with Syria, Iran, and possibly Russia, launched a major crackdown which resulted in the arrests of around 100 alleged spies "working for Israel".^[75] Previously, in 2006, the Lebanese army uncovered a network that allegedly assassinated several Lebanese and Palestinian leaders on behalf of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.^[76]

Palestine

Caesarea tried for many years to assassinate Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat, a job later tasked by Israel's Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon to a military special ops task force code named "Salt Fish", later renamed "Operation Goldfish", specially created for the job of assassinating Arafat,^[77] with Ronan Bergman suggesting that Israel used radiation poisoning to kill Yasser Arafat.^[78]

Syria

Eli Cohen infiltrated the highest echelons of the Syrian government, was a close friend of the Syrian President, and was considered for the post of Minister of Defense. He gave his handlers a complete plan of the Syrian defenses on the Golan Heights, the Syrian Armed Forces order of battle, and a complete list of the Syrian military's weapons inventory. He also ordered the planting of trees by every Syrian fortified position under the pretext of shading soldiers, but the trees actually served as targeting markers for the Israel Defense Forces. He was discovered by Syrian and Soviet intelligence, tried in secret, and executed publicly in 1965.^[79] His information played a crucial role during the Six-Day War.

On April 1, 1978, 12 Syrian military and secret service personnel were killed by a booby trapped sophisticated Israeli listening device planted on the main telephone cable between Damascus and Jordan.^[80]

The alleged death of General Anatoly Kuntsevich, who from the late 1990s was suspected of aiding the Syrians in the manufacture of VX nerve-gas, in exchange for which he was paid huge amounts of money by the Syrian government. On April 3, 2002, Kuntsevich died mysteriously during a plane journey, amid allegations that Mossad was responsible.^[80]

The alleged killing of Izz El-Deen Sheikh Khalil, a senior member of the military wing of Hamas, in an automobile booby trap in September 2004 in Damascus.^[81]

The uncovering of a nuclear reactor being built in Syria as a result of surveillance by Mossad of Syrian officials working under the command of Muhammad Suleiman. As a result, the Syrian nuclear reactor was destroyed by Israeli Air Forces in September 2007 (see Operation Orchard).^[80]

The alleged killing of Muhammad Suleiman, head of Syria's nuclear program, in 2008. Suleiman was on a beach in Tartus and was killed by a sniper firing from a boat.^[82]

On July 25, 2007, the al-Safir chemical weapons depot exploded, killing 15 Syrian personnel as well as 10 Iranian engineers. Syrian investigations blamed Israeli sabotage.^[80]

The alleged killing of Imad Mughniyah, a senior leader of Hezbollah complicit in the 1983 United States embassy bombing, with an exploding headrest in Damascus in 2008.^[83]

The decomposed body of Yuri Ivanov, the deputy head of the GRU, Russia's foreign military intelligence service, was found on a Turkish beach in early August 2010,^[84] amid allegations that Mossad may have played a role. He had disappeared while staying near Latakia, Syria.^[85]

Mossad was accused of being behind the assassination of Aziz Asbar, a senior Syrian scientist responsible for developing long-range rockets and chemical weapons programs. He was killed in a car bomb in Masyaf on August 5, 2018.^[86]

United Arab Emirates

Mossad is suspected of killing Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior Hamas military commander, in January 2010 at Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The team which carried out the killing is estimated, on the basis of CCTV and other evidence, to have consisted of at least 26 agents traveling on bogus passports. The operatives entered al-Mabhouh's hotel room, where Mabhouh was subjected to electric shocks and interrogated. The door to his room was reported to have been locked from the inside.^{[87][88][89][90][91]} Although the UAE police and Hamas have declared Israel responsible for the killing, no direct evidence linking Mossad to the crime has been found. The agents' bogus passports included six British passports, cloned from those of real British nationals resident in Israel and suspected by Dubai, five Irish passports, apparently forged from those of living individuals,^[92] forged Australian passports that raised fears of reprisal against innocent victims of identity theft,^[93] a genuine German passport and a false French passport. Emirati police say they have fingerprint and DNA evidence of some of the attackers, as well as retinal scans of 11 suspects recorded at Dubai airport.^[94][95] Dubai's police chief has said "I am now completely sure that it was Mossad," adding: "I have presented the (Dubai) prosecutor with a request for the arrest of (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu and the head of Mossad," for the murder.^[96]

South Asia and East/Southeast Asia

India

A Rediff story in 2003 revealed that Mossad had clandestine links with the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), India's external intelligence agency. When R&AW was founded in September 1968 by Rameshwar Nath Kao, he was advised by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to cultivate links with Mossad. This was suggested as a countermeasure to military links between that of Pakistan and China, as well as with North Korea. Israel was also concerned that Pakistani army officers were training Libyans and Iranians in handling Chinese and North Korean military equipment.^[97]

Pakistan believed intelligence relations between India and Israel threatened Pakistani security. When young Israeli tourists began visiting the Kashmir valley in the early 1990s, Pakistan suspected they were disguised Israeli army officers there to help Indian security forces with anti-terrorism operations. Israeli tourists were attacked, with one slain and another kidnapped. Pressure from the Kashmiri Muslim diaspora in the United States led to his release. Kashmiri Muslims feared that the attacks could isolate the American Jewish community, and result in them lobbying the US government against Kashmiri separatist groups.^[97]

India Today reported that the two flats were RAW safe houses used as operational fronts for Mossad agents and housed Mossad's station chief between 1989 and 1992. RAW had reportedly decided to have closer ties to Mossad, and the subsequent secret operation was approved by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. India Today cites "RAW insiders" as saying that RAW agents hid a Mossad agent holding an Argentine passport and exchanged intelligence and expertise in operations, including negotiations for the release of an Israeli tourist by the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front militants in June 1991. When asked about the case Verma refused to speak about the companies, but claimed his relationship with them was purely professional. Raman stated, "Sometimes, spy agencies float companies for operational reasons. All I can say is that everything was done with government approval. Files were cleared by the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and his cabinet secretary. Balachandran stated, "It is true that we did a large number of operations but at every stage, we kept the Cabinet Secretariat and the prime minister in the loop."^[98]

In November 2015, The Times of India reported that agents from Mossad and MI5 were protecting Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Turkey. Modi was on a state visit to the United Kingdom and was scheduled to attend the 2015 G-20 Summit in Antalya, Turkey. The paper reported that the agents had been called in to provide additional cover to Modi's security detail, composed of India's Special Protection Group and secret agents from RAW and IB, in wake of the November 2015 Paris attacks.^[99][100]

Malaysia

In 2018, Hamas and the family of Malaysian-based Hamas engineer and university lecturer Fadi Mohammad al-Batsh have accused the Mossad of assassinating him. In April 2018, al-Batsh was shot dead by two men on a motorbike in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi described the suspects as Europeans with links to an unidentified foreign intelligence agency. In response, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman denied that Mossad was involved in al-Batsh's assassination and suggested that his death was the result of an internal Palestinian dispute.^[101][102] Hamas also issued a statement describing Batsh as a "martyr" and "distinguished scientist who has widely contributed to the energy sector."^[103]

In October 2022, the New Straits Times and Al Jazeera Arabic reported that several Malaysian Mossad operatives had attempted to kidnap two Palestinian computer experts in Kuala Lumpur in late September 2022. Though they managed to kidnap one of the men, the second escaped and alerted Malaysian police. The operatives allegedly assisted Mossad officials via video call in interrogating and beating their captive, who was questioned about the computer programming and software capabilities of Hamas and its Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. With the aid of the second Palestinian man, Malaysian police were able to track down the car registration plates to a house where the alleged kidnappers were arrested and the man was freed. According to Al Jazeera Arabic, a "well-informed Malaysian source" claimed that an investigation had uncovered an undercover 11-member Mossad cell in Malaysia that was involved in spying on important sites including airports, government electronic companies, and tracking down Palestinian activists. This Mossad cell allegedly consisted of Malaysian nationals who received training in Europe.^{[104][105][106]}

North Korea

Mossad may have been involved in the 2004 explosion of Ryongchon, where several Syrian nuclear scientists working on the Syrian and Iranian nuclear-weapons programs were killed and a train carrying fissionable material was destroyed.^[107]

Pakistan

In a September 2003 news article,^[108] it was alleged by Rediff News that General Pervez Musharraf, the then-president of Pakistan, decided to establish a clandestine relationship between Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Mossad via officers of the two services posted at their embassies in Washington, DC.

Sri Lanka

Mossad had helped both Sri Lanka and the Eelam. Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky claimed that Mossad trained both the Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE while keeping the two separated. Ravi Jayawardene, head of the STF, had toured Israel in 1984 and took inspiration from the Israeli settlements in the Palestinian Territories to form armed Sinhalese settlements in strategic border areas of the Tamil-dominant Northern and Eastern provinces.^[109]

Europe

Austria

In 1954, after Mossad received intelligence that an Israeli officer who had access to classified military technologies, Major Alexander Israel, had approached Egyptian officials in Europe and offered to sell Israeli military secrets and documents, a team of Mossad and Shin Bet officers was quickly sent to Europe to locate him and abduct him, and located him in Vienna. The mission was code-named Operation Bren. A female agent managed to lure him to a meeting through a honey trap operation, and he was subsequently kidnapped, sedated, and flown to Israel aboard a waiting Israeli military plane. However, the plane had to make several refueling stops, and he was given an additional dose of sedatives each time, which ultimately caused him to overdose, killing him. Upon arrival in Israel, after it was discovered that he was dead, he was given a burial at sea, and the case remained highly classified for decades.^[110]

Mossad gathered information on Austrian politician Jörg Haider using a mole.^[111]

Belgium

Mossad is alleged to be responsible for the killing of Canadian engineer and ballistics expert Gerald Bull on March 22, 1990. He was shot multiple times in the head outside his Brussels apartment.^[112] Bull was at the time working for Iraq on the Project Babylon supergun.^[113] Others, including Bull's son, believe that Mossad is taking credit for an act they did not commit to scare off others who may try to help enemy regimes. The alternative theory is that Bull was killed by the CIA. Iraq and Iran are also candidates for suspicion.^[114]

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Assisted in air and overland evacuations of Bosnian Jews from war-torn Sarajevo to Israel in 1992 and 1993.^[115]

Cyprus

The killing of Hussein Al Bashir in Nicosia, Cyprus, in 1973 in relation to the Munich massacre.^[70]

France

Mossad allegedly assisted Morocco's domestic security service in the disappearance of dissident politician Mehdi Ben Barka in 1965.^[116]

Cherbourg Project – Operation Noa, the 1969 smuggling of five Sa'ar 3-class missile boats out of Cherbourg.^{[citation needed]}

The killing of Mahmoud Hamshari, alleged coordinator of the Munich massacre, with an exploding telephone in his Paris apartment in 1972.^[70]

The killing of Basil Al Kubaisi, who was involved in the Munich massacre, in Paris in 1973.^[70]

The killing of Mohamed Boudia, member of the PFLP, in Paris in 1973.^[70]

On April 5, 1979, Mossad agents are believed to have triggered an explosion which destroyed 60 percent of components being built in Toulouse for an Iraqi reactor. Although an environmental organization, Groupe des écologistes français, unheard of before this incident, claimed credit for the blast,^[62] most French officials discount the claim. The reactor itself was subsequently destroyed by an Israeli air strike in 1981.^[62][117]

The alleged killing of Zuheir Mohsen, a pro-Syrian member of the PLO, in 1979.^[118]

The killing of Yehia El-Mashad, the head of the Iraq nuclear weapons program, in 1980.^[119]

The alleged killing of Atef Bseiso, a top intelligence officer of the PLO, in Paris in 1992. French police believe that a team of assassins followed Atef Bseiso from Berlin, where that first team connected with another team to close in on him in front of a Left Bank hotel, where he received three head-shots at point blank range.^[120]

Germany

Operation Plumbat (1968) was an operation by Lekem-Mossad to further Israel's nuclear program. The German freighter "Scheersberg A" disappeared on its way from Antwerp to Genoa along with its cargo of 200 tons of yellowcake, after supposedly being transferred to an Israeli ship.^[121]

The sending of letter bombs during the assassination campaign. Some of these attacks were not fatal. Their purpose might not have been to kill the receiver. A Mossad letter bomb led to fugitive Nazi war-criminal Alois Brunner's losing four fingers from his right hand in 1980.^[122] Years earlier, on 25 September 1963, the Mossad tried to kill SS-Hauptsturmführer and concentration camp doctor Hans Eisele with a mail bomb. However, the bomb detonated early, instead killing a postal worker.^[123][124]

The alleged targeted killing of Wadie Haddad, using poisoned chocolate. Haddad died on 28 March 1978, in the German Democratic Republic supposedly from leukemia. According to the book Striking Back, published by Aharon Klein in 2006, Haddad was eliminated by Mossad, which had sent the chocolate-loving Haddad Belgian chocolates coated with a slow-acting and undetectable poison which caused him to die several months later. "It took him a few long months to die", Klein said in the book.^[125]

Mossad discovered that Hezbollah had recruited a German national named Steven Smyrek, and that he was travelling to Israel. In an operation conducted by Mossad, the CIA, the German Internal Security agency Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), and the Israeli Internal Security agency Shin Bet, Smyrek was kept under constant surveillance, and arrested as soon as he landed in Israel.^[126]

Greece

The killing of Zaiad Muchasi, Fatah representative to Cyprus, by an explosion in his Athens hotel room in 1973.^[70]

Ireland

The assassination of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh – a senior Hamas military commander – in Dubai, 2010, was suspected to be the work of Mossad, and there were eight Irish passports (six of which were used) fraudulently obtained by the Israeli embassy in Dublin, Ireland for use by alleged Mossad agents in the operation. The Irish government was angered over the use of Irish passports, summoned the Israeli ambassador for an explanation and expelled the Israeli diplomat deemed responsible from Dublin, following an investigation. One of the passports was registered to a residence on Pembroke Road, Ballsbridge, on the same road as the Israeli embassy. The house was empty when later searched, but there was suspicion by Irish authorities it had been used as a Mossad safe house in the past.^[127][128] Mossad is reported to have a working relationship with the Irish military intelligence service^[129] and has previously tipped the Irish authorities off about arms shipments from the Middle East to Ireland for use by dissident republican militants, resulting in their interception and arrests.^[130]

Italy

The killing of Wael Zwaiter, thought to be a member of Black September.^[131][132]

In 1986, Mossad used an undercover agent to lure Mordechai Vanunu, in a honey trap style operation, from the United Kingdom to Italy. There, he was abducted and returned to Israel, where he was tried and found guilty of treason because of his role in exposing Israel's nuclear weapons programme.^[133]

Malta

The killing of Fathi Shiqaqi. Shiqaqi, a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was shot several times in the head in 1995 in front of the Diplomat Hotel in Sliema, Malta.^[134]

Norway

On July 21, 1973, Ahmed Bouchiki, a Moroccan waiter in Lillehammer, Norway, was killed by Mossad agents. He had been mistaken for Ali Hassan Salameh, one of the leaders of Black September, the Palestinian group responsible for the Munich massacre, who had been given shelter in Norway. Mossad agents had used fake Canadian passports, which angered the Canadian government. Six Mossad agents were arrested, and the incident came to be known as the Lillehammer affair. Israel subsequently paid compensation to Bouchiki's family.^{[133][135][136]}

Serbia

Israel provided weapons to the Serbs during the Bosnian War, possibly due to the pro-Serbian bias of the government of the time,^[137] or possibly in exchange for the immigration of the Sarajevo Jewish community to Israel.^[138] The Mossad allegedly was responsible for providing Serbian groups with arms.^[139]

Switzerland

According to secret CIA and US State Department documents discovered by the Iranian students who took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979:

In Switzerland the Israelis have an Embassy in Bern and a Consulate-General in Zürich which provide cover for Collection Department officers involved in unilateral operations. These Israeli diplomatic installations also maintain close relations with the Swiss on a local level in regard to overt functions such as physical security for Israeli official and commercial installations in the country and the protection of staff members and visiting Israelis. There is also close collaboration between the Israelis and Swiss on scientific and technical matters pertaining to intelligence and security operations. Swiss officials have made frequent trips to Israel. There is a continual flow of Israelis to and through Switzerland. These visits, however, are usually arranged through the Political Action and Liaison regional controller at the Embassy in Paris directly with the Swiss and not through the officials in the Israeli Embassy in Bern, although the latter are kept informed.^{[citation needed]}

In February 1998, five Mossad agents were caught wiretapping the home of a Hezbollah agent in a Bern suburb. Four agents were freed, but the fifth was tried, found guilty, sentenced to one year in prison, and following his release was banned from entering Switzerland for five years.^[140]

Soviet Union

Mossad was involved in outreach to refuseniks in the Soviet Union during the crackdown on Soviet Jews in the period between the 1950s and the 1980s. Mossad helped establish contact with Refuseniks in the USSR, and helped them acquire Jewish religious items, banned by the Soviet government, in addition to passing communications into and out of the USSR. Many rabbinical students from Western countries travelled to the Soviet Union as part of this program in order to establish and maintain contact with refuseniks.

United Kingdom

In 1984 Mossad agents were caught attempting to kidnap Nigerian politician Umaru Dikko from London. On July 4, 1984 customs officials at Stansted airport discovered Dikko in a crate about to be flown to Nigeria. Agents Alexander Barak, Felix Abithol and anesthetist Dr Levi-Arie Shapiro were given prison sentences of between ten and fourteen years.

In 1986, a bag containing eight forged British passports was discovered in a telephone booth in West Germany. The passports had been the work of Mossad and were intended for the Israeli Embassy in London for use in covert operations. The British government, furious, demanded that Israel give a promise not forge its passports again, which was obtained.^[141]

On June 15, 1988, following the trial and conviction of a Palestinian post-graduate student studying at Hull University, Ismail Sowan, two Mossad agents were expelled from the UK. Sowan was found in possession of a large arms cache and was sentenced to eleven years in prison. During his trial it had been revealed that he had employed by Mossad for ten years. The Mossad agents, Arie Regev and Jacob Barad, were Sowan’s controllers. They had failed to inform MI6 of Sowan’s activities and that they were aware that a Palestinian, Abd al-Rahim Mustapha, believed to be involved in the assassination of Naji al-Ali had entered the country illegally.^[142] The Mossad station in UK remained closed until the 1994 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in London.

Ukraine

In February 2011, a Palestinian engineer, Dirar Abu Seesi, was allegedly pulled off a train by Mossad agents en route to the capital Kyiv from Kharkiv. He had been planning to apply for Ukrainian citizenship, and reappeared in an Israeli jail only three weeks after the incident.^[143]

Oceania

New Zealand

Further information: Israel-New Zealand relations and Foreign espionage in New Zealand

In July 2004, New Zealand imposed diplomatic sanctions on Israel over an incident in which two Australia-based Israelis, Uriel Kelman and Eli Cara, who were allegedly working for Mossad, attempted to fraudulently obtain New Zealand passports by claiming the identity of a severely disabled man. Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom later apologized to New Zealand for their actions. New Zealand cancelled several other passports believed to have been obtained by Israeli agents.^[144] Both Kelman and Cara served half of their six-month sentences and, upon release, were deported to Israel. Two others, an Israeli, Ze'ev Barkan, and a New Zealander, David Reznick, are believed to have been the third and fourth men involved in the passport affair but they both managed to leave New Zealand before being apprehended.^[145]

In popular culture

Films (including made-for-television movies)

• The films Sword of Gideon (1986) and Munich (2005), depict Mossad agents' retaliation against Black September following the events of the 1972 Munich Olympics.
• The Impossible Spy (1987) is a TV movie about the life of top Mossad spy Eli Cohen.
• In the film Swordfish (2001), the lead character Gabriel Shear (played by John Travolta) is believed to be a Mossad agent.
• The Red Sea Diving Resort (2019) is loosely based on the events of Operation Moses and Operation Joshua (jointly referred to as Operation Brothers), in which Ethiopian Jews were covertly moved from refugee camps in Sudan to Israel.
• The House on Garibaldi Street (1979) and Operation Finale (2018) movies about the Mossad exfiltration of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann from Argentina

Literature

(Alphabetical by author's surname)

• In Jeffrey Archer's novel Honour Among Thieves (1993), the lead female protagonist is a Mossad agent.
• In book 4 of Mark Greaney's Gray Man series, Dead Eye, Mossad and the CIA partner to capture the world's most feared and lethal rogue former black ops agent Courtland Gentry.
• Daniel Silva's spy novel series is centered on fictional Mossad agent and assassin, Gabriel Allon. The term "Mossad" is never used in the novels, but the protagonist is described as working for Israel's intelligence service (which the characters refer to simply as "the Office").
• John Le Carre's novel The Little Drummer Girl (1983) describes a fictional Mossad operation against Palestinian terrorists.
• Frederick Forsyth's novel The Fist of God describes the inner workings of various Mossad divisions.

Television

(Alphabetical by show)

• Tehran (2020–present) is a spy thriller television series about a Mossad agent working undercover in Iran.
• In the TV series The Blacklist (2013–present), Mossad agent Samar Navabi (played by Mozhan Marnò) is one of the side characters.
• In the TV series Covert Affairs (2010–2015), Mossad agent Eyal Lavin is a recurring character.
• Since the NCIS season 3 episode "Kill Ari (Part 1)" (2005), Mossad has played an instrumental part. Mossad's presence includes one of the main characters, Agent Ziva David, who is a former Mossad Agent. She originally filled the position of Mossad liaison to NCIS, until the end of season 7, when she became a full-time NCIS agent. Her father, Eli David, was the director of Mossad, until the season 10 episode "Shabbat Shalom", when he was killed. Many other characters have been included in the show from Mossad, including Michael Rivkin and Ari Haswari. Some episodes of the show have taken place in Israel.
• The Spy (2019) is a web television miniseries on the life of top Mossad spy Eli Cohen.

See also

• Israel portal

• Duvdevan Unit – Israel's undercover strike unit
• List of Israeli assassinations
• Special Activities Division
• The Spy Machine (1998), a British documentary special about the work of the Mossad
• Unit 8200, Israeli Intelligence Corps SIGINT and cyber unit
• Yamam, Israel's elite Border Police SWAT unit

Explanatory notes

1. ^ Also referred to as "the Mossad" (Hebrew: הַמּוֹסָד, romanized: ha-Mosád, IPA: [hamoˈsad]; Arabic: الموساد, romanized: al-Mōsād, IPA: [almoːˈsaːd]; lit. 'the Institute').
2. ^ Argentina claimed that the "illicit and clandestine transfer of Eichmann from Argentine territory constitutes a flagrant violation of the Argentine State's right of sovereignty[.]"^[39] In Eichmann's case, the most salient feature from the perspective of international law was the fact of Israeli law enforcement action in another state's territory without consent; the human element includes the dramatic circumstances of the capture by Mossad agents and the ensuing custody and transfer to Israel[.]^[40] At its most obvious level this means that the exercise of enforcement jurisdiction within the territory of another state will be a violation of territorial integrity. For example, after Adolf Eichmann [...] was abducted from Argentina by a group of Israelis, now known to be from the Israeli Secret Service (Mossad), the Argentine Government lodged a complaint with the UN Security Council [...] It is however unclear whether as a matter of international law the obligation to make reparation for a violation of territorial sovereignty such as that involved in the Eichmann case includes an obligation to return the offender.^[41]

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77. ^ Bergman, Ronen (January 23, 2018). "How Arafat Eluded Israel's Assassination Machine". New York Times.
78. ^ Poisoned toothpaste and exploding phones: New book chronicles Israel’s ‘2,700’ assassination operations Ethan Bronner, Saturday 27 January 2018, The Independent.
79. ^ Our Man in Damascus, 1969.
80. ^ Jump up to:^a b c d Ronen Bergman, The Spies Inside Damascus Foreign Policy, September 19, 2013
81. ^ Hamas member assassinated in Syria News From Bangladesh, September 27, 2004
82. ^ Assassinations: the work of Mossad? Times, February 16, 2010
83. ^ Mahnaimi, Uzi; Jaber, Hala; Swain, Jon (February 17, 2008). "Israel kills terror chief with headrest bomb". The Sunday Times. London. Retrieved February 16, 2008.
84. ^ Top Russian spy’s body washes up 'after swimming accident’, Telegraph
85. ^ Israel's Red Line: Fate of Syrian Chemical Weapons May Trigger WarDer Spiegel, By Ronen Bergman, Juliane von Mittelstaedt, Matthias Schepp and Holger Stark, July 31, 2012
86. ^ "A Top Syrian Scientist Is Killed, and Fingers Point at Israel". The New York Times. August 6, 2018.
87. ^ Dubai Releases Video Of Alleged Assassins In Hamas Chief Killing Huffington Post February 16, 2010, attributed to Associated Press
88. ^ UAE: European team killed Mabhouh Jerusalem Post and Associated Press, February 15, 2010
89. ^ Katz, Yaakov (January 31, 2010). "Analysis: Another blow to the 'axis of evil'". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved January 31, 2010.
90. ^ Issacharoff, Avi (February 2, 2010). "Who killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh? / Many wanted Hamas man dead". Haaretz. Retrieved February 2, 2010.
91. ^ Melman, Yossi (February 11, 2010). "10 agents including 3 women, took part in Dubai Hamas assassination" Haaretz. Retrieved February 11, 2010.
92. ^ "Dubai suspects had five fake Irish passports". RTÉ News. February 18, 2010. Retrieved February 21, 2010.
93. ^ "Man in photo on Hamas leader hit squad passport not my son, says mum". The Australian. February 25, 2010. Retrieved February 25, 2010.
94. ^ 'U.K. police in Israel to probe passports used in Dubai hit' (Haaretz, February 27, 2010
95. ^ 'Interpol adds suspected Dubai assassins to most wanted list' Haaretz February 22, 2010)
96. ^ Israeli PM's arrest sought over murder News, March 3, 2010
97. ^ Jump up to:^a b RAW and MOSSAD, the Secret Link,rediff.com
98. ^ "An ex-RAW employee takes boss to unveil a riveting story of safe houses for Mossad, fake firms and secret funds". India Today. March 15, 2013. Retrieved November 13, 2016.
99. ^ Rajshekhar Jha (November 15, 2015). "Mossad, MI5 roped in to shield Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Turkey?". The Times of India. Retrieved November 13, 2016.
100. ^ "Mossad may be protecting Modi at Turkey G20 summit, paper claims". The Times of Israel. November 15, 2015. Retrieved November 13, 2016.
101. ^ "Fadi al-Batsh killing: Israel dismisses involvement". BBC News. April 22, 2018. Archived from the original on January 10, 2022. Retrieved October 20, 2022.
102. ^ "Israel dismisses suggestions it killed Palestinian in Malaysia". Reuters. April 22, 2018. Archived from the original on February 2, 2021. Retrieved October 20, 2022.
103. ^ "Palestinian engineer 'killed by Mossad' in Malaysia, says family". Middle East Eye. April 21, 2018. Archived from the original on October 18, 2022. Retrieved October 20, 2022.
104. ^ "Mossad used locals to kidnap Palestinian". New Straits Times. October 18, 2022. Archived from the original on October 20, 2022. Retrieved October 20, 2022.
105. ^ "Malaysian media says Israel's Mossad behind kidnapped Palestinian". Al Jazeera. October 18, 2022. Archived from the original on October 19, 2022. Retrieved October 20, 2022.
106. ^ "Malaysian forces free Gazan after alleged Mossad abduction in Kuala Lumpur – report". The Times of Israel. October 18, 2022. Archived from the original on October 19, 2022. Retrieved October 20, 2022.
107. ^ Thomas, Gordon: Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad (Fifth Edition)
108. ^ "RAW & Mossad: The Secret Link". rediff.com. September 8, 2003.
109. ^ Hoole, Rajan (October 17, 2014). Sri Lanka: The Arrogance of Power: Myths, Decadence & Murder. UTHR-J. Retrieved May 17, 2021.
110. ^ Goldman, Jan: Ethics of Spying: A Reader for the Intelligence Professional, Volume 2 p. 63-64
111. ^ Boyes, Roger (June 2, 2005). "Mossad spied on farright Austrian". The Times. London.
112. ^ "Murdered by the Mossad?" (asf). Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. February 12, 1991. Retrieved August 30, 2009.
113. ^ Frum, Barbara (April 5, 1990). "Who killed Gerald Bull? (Video) – CBC". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved July 15, 2009.
114. ^ Dr. Gerald Bull: Scientist, Weapons Maker, Dreamer at CBC.ca
115. ^ Traynor, Ian. Cover story: Those who are called, The Guardian 10 December 1994
116. ^ Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi (1987) The Israeli connection, I.B.Tauris, p. 46.
117. ^ "FRANCE PROTESTS TO ISRAEL ON RAID", The New York Times, June 10, 1981. Retrieved November 16, 2006.
118. ^ Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem (HarperCollins Publishers, 1998, 2nd ed.), p. 118
119. ^ Ford, Peter S., Major, USAF, "Israel's Attack on Osiraq: A Model for Future Preventive Strikes?", INSS Occasional Paper 59, USAF Institute for National Security Studies, USAF Academy, Colorado, July 2005, p. 15
120. ^ Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel's Deadly Response, ISBN 0-8129-7463-8
121. ^ ISRAEL The Plumbat Operation (1968) retrieved 10/12/2008
122. ^ Henley, Jon (March 3, 2001). "French court strikes blow against fugitive Nazi". The Guardian. Retrieved October 27, 2006.
123. ^ Cite error: The named reference Independent was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
124. ^ Bergman, Ronen (July 9, 2019). Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations. Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8129-8211-4.
125. ^ "Israel used chocs to poison Palestinian". SMH. May 8, 2008. Retrieved February 27, 2013.
126. ^ Ross, Michael, The Volunteer, pp. 158–159
127. ^ Black, Ian (June 15, 2010). "Ireland orders Israeli diplomat out of embassy over forged passports". The Guardian. Retrieved May 10, 2014.
128. ^ "Mossad and the Irish connection". Irish Independent. December 1, 2012. Retrieved May 10, 2014.
129. ^ "Secret army squad keeps watch on 60 Al Qaeda in Ireland". Irish Daily Star. March 26, 2013. Archived from the original on August 20, 2014. Retrieved May 30, 2014.
130. ^ O'Hanlon, Ray (February 16, 2011). "Inside File The Mossad's long arm". Irish Echo. Retrieved May 19, 2014.
131. ^ Johnson, Ken (February 13, 2009). "Material for a Palestinian's Life and Death". The New York Times. Retrieved December 4, 2011.
132. ^ ""An Eye for an Eye", Bob Simon". CBS News. November 20, 2011. Retrieved December 4, 2011.
133. ^ Jump up to:^a b "Capturing nuclear whistle-blower". Haaretz. Archived from the original on February 21, 2009.
134. ^ "Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)". Military.com. Archived from the original on April 10, 2005. Retrieved November 23, 2023.
135. ^ "Israelis to Compensate Family of Slain Waiter". The New York Times. January 28, 1996. Retrieved December 4, 2011.
136. ^ "TERRORISM: Fatal Error". Time. August 6, 1973. Archived from the original on March 7, 2008.
137. ^ How are Bosnia's Serbs getting Israeli arms?, By Tom Sawicki, The Jerusalem Report, January 1995
138. ^ Intelligence and the War in Bosnia, 1992–1995 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 2003), 215.
139. ^ America used Islamists to arm the Bosnian Muslims Richard J Aldrich, Monday 22 April 2002, The Guardian
140. ^ Probert, Roy (July 7, 2000). "Mossad agent gets 12-month suspended sentence". Swissinfo. Retrieved July 1, 2022.
141. ^ Weber, Yonatan (June 20, 1995). "Expelling Israeli diplomats: Thatcher did it first - Israel News, Ynetnews". Ynetnews. Ynetnews.com. Retrieved November 19, 2015.
142. ^ Middle East International No 328, 24 June 1988, Publishers Lord Mayhew, Dennis Walters MP; George Joffe p.5
143. ^ "UN confirms Mossad kidnaps Gaza's chief power plant engineer, Dirar Abu Seesi, from Ukraine, suspects Ukrainian help". WikiLeaks Central. March 10, 2011. Retrieved March 11, 2011.
144. ^ "Israeli government apologises to New Zealand". The New Zealand Herald. NZPA. June 26, 2005. Retrieved October 26, 2011.
145. ^ Hallel, Amir (October 2, 2004). "At home with the Mossad men". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved October 26, 2011.

Further reading

• Bar-Zohar, Michael and Mishal, Nissim. Mossad: The Great Operations of Israel's Secret Service. The Robson Press, 2012. ISBN 978-1-84954-368-2.
• Ben-Menashe, Ari. Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network. New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1992. ISBN 1-879823-01-2. OCLC 26586922.
• Black, Ian and Benny Morris. Israel's Secret Wars: A History of Israel's Intelligence Services. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991. ISBN 978-0-8021-3286-4. OCLC 249707944.
• Central Intelligence Agency. Israel: Foreign Intelligence and Security Services: A Survey. Washington, D.C., 1979. (Included in Documents from the US Espionage Den. Tehran: Center for the Publication of the US Espionage Den's Documents, 1982.)
• Jonas, George. Vengeance. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984. ISBN 0-671-50611-0. OCLC 10507421.
• Lapid, Ephraim and Amos Gilboa, Israel's Silent Defender: An Inside Look at Sixty Years of Israeli Intelligence (2012)
• Libel, Tamir. "Looking for meaning: lessons from Mossad’s failed adaptation to the post-Cold War era, 1991–2013." Journal of Intelligence History 14.2 (2015): 83–95. abstract
• Raviv, Dan and Melman, Yossi. Spies Against Armageddon: Inside Israel's Secret Wars. Sea Cliff: Levant Books, 2012. ISBN 978-0985437831.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mossad.

• Official website
• Official website (in Hebrew)
• Official website (in Arabic)
• Libertad website

 

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  Tamir Pardo

Former Head of Mossad 2011 to 2016 which is Isrsel's Security Agency Tamir Pardo - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamir_Pardo#:~:text=Tamir%20Pardo%20(Hebrew%3A%20%D7%AA%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%A8%20%D7%A4%D7%A8%D7%93%D7%95,role%20from%202011%20until%202016. 

Tamir Pardo (Hebrew: תמיר פרדו; born 1953) is the former Director of Mossad, taking over the role from Meir Dagan on January 1, 2011. The appointment was announced by Israeli prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on November 29, 2010.^[1] He served in the role from 2011 until 2016.

Tamir Pardo
תמיר פרדו‎
Pardo in 2015
11th Director of the Mossad
In office January 1, 2011 – January 5, 2016
Prime Minister	Benjamin Netanyahu
Preceded by	Meir Dagan
Succeeded by	Yossi Cohen
Personal details
Born	1953 Tel Aviv, Israel
Alma mater	Tel Aviv University
Military service
Allegiance	Israel
Branch/service	Israel Defense Forces
Years of service	1971–present
Battles/wars	Operation Entebbe

Since he stepped down as Director of Mossad, he has been a vocal critic of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his 2023 judicial reforms. He has called for Netanyahu to resign and stand trial on charges of engaging in a coup, and accused the Israeli government of overseeing an apartheid state.^[2][3][4][5] He has also accused Netanyahu of planning to directly attack Iran, and of spying on both himself and Benny Gantz, then chief of General Staff of the IDF.^[6][7][8]

Biography

Since he stepped down as Director of Mossad, he has been a vocal critic of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his 2023 judicial reforms. He has called for Netanyahu to resign and stand trial on charges of engaging in a coup, and accused the Israeli government of overseeing an apartheid state.^[2][3][4][5] He has also accused Netanyahu of planning to directly attack Iran, and of spying on both himself and Benny Gantz, then chief of General Staff of the IDF.^[6][7][8]

Biography

Pardo was born in Tel Aviv to a Sephardi-Jewish family. His father was an immigrant from Turkey, and his mother was of Serbian-Jewish origin. At age 18, when he began his compulsory service in the Israel Defense Forces, he volunteered for the paratroopers. He graduated from an officers' course, and later served as a communication officer in the elite special forces unit Sayeret Matkal. He also served in the Shaldag Unit. He was a member of the unit under the command of Yonatan "Yoni" Netanyahu and participated in Operation Entebbe. Netanyahu, elder brother to current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was killed during the operation.

After completing his military service, Pardo joined the Mossad in 1980, and served in entry-level technical positions. He took part in several classified operations, and was awarded the Israel Security Prize three times. He rose through the ranks and eventually became head of the "Keshet" department, responsible for operations, including obtaining electronic intelligence through wiretaps and photographic methods. In 2005, he was in line for promotion to the organization's number 2 position, when another individual was given the job. Mossad Director-General Meir Dagan thereupon lent Pardo to the IDF, where he served as a senior advisor for operations to the Israeli General Staff. He served in this position during the 2006 Lebanon War. After Dagan fired his number 2, he invited Pardo to return to the Mossad and assume the role. Pardo did so in the belief that when Dagan retired, he would be offered the job. However, Dagan's term was extended and he did not retire when expected. This led Pardo to leave the Mossad, whereupon he went into private business with Israeli Internet gambling entrepreneur Noam Lanir, and to serve as chairman of Shizim Group.

Mossad leadershipedit

Israeli media reported that Netanyahu's first candidate for the role of Mossad chief, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries's CEO, retired Major General Shlomo Yanai, was offered the job but turned it down. Of several other candidates, Pardo was the only one to have served in the Mossad. His choice may reflect a wish on the part of Prime Minister Netanyahu to signal continuity by choosing a candidate from within the ranks.^[9]

It was anticipated that Pardo would continue the work of his predecessor, Meir Dagan, in attempting to thwart any attempts by the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to build a nuclear weapon.^[10]

On August 2, 2011, German news website Spiegel Online published an article named "Mossad Behind Tehran Assassinations, Says Source", claiming receiving information from "an Israeli intelligence source", linking Mossad under Tamir Pardo as its chief to the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Darioush Rezaeinejad in Tehran on July 23, 2011.^[11] The report was reprinted by several news agencies, yet without providing additional sources to confirm the information.^{[12][13][14][15][16]}

Post–Mossadedit

In June 2016, the American NGO United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) announced that Pardo had joined the group's Advisory Board.^[17] Upon joining, Pardo said, "The leading global powers cannot turn a blind eye to the clear and present dangers the Iranian regime poses to the safety and freedoms of millions of people within their borders and throughout the world."^[18]

In addition, in 2016 Pardo founded together with Noam Erez, and Boaz Gorodiski XM Cyber, a company that developed a technology to help other companies improve their cyber defense by simulating organized cyber attacks.^[19]

During an interview with Haaretz in May 2018, Pardo said that in 2011 Netanyahu ordered the Mossad and IDF to prepare for an attack on Iran within 15 days, but he and Chief of Staff Benny Gantz questioned the Prime Minister's legal authority to give such an order without Cabinet approval, so Netanyahu backed off.^[20]

In June 2018 Pardo stated that Mossad was 'a crime organization with a license,' something which, he added, made working for it the 'fun part'.^[21]

On 6 September 2023 in a statement to the Associated Press, Pardo claimed that Israel is an apartheid state: “There is an apartheid state here. In a territory where two people are judged under two legal systems, that is an apartheid state."^[2][22] He also claimed that while Director of Mossad he saw the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the most important threat to Israel, and "repeatedly warned Netanyahu that he needed to decide what Israel’s borders were, or risk the destruction of a state for the Jews."^[2][23]

Referencesedit

1. ^ Melman, Yossi (November 29, 2010). "Who is new Mossad chief Tamir Pardo?". Haaretz. Retrieved August 26, 2014.
2. ^ Jump up to:^a b c Goldenberg, Tia (2023-09-06). "A former Mossad chief says Israel is enforcing an apartheid system in the West Bank". AP News. Archived from the original on 2023-09-06. Retrieved 2023-09-06.
3. ^ "Former Mossad Head Calls for Netanyahu to Resign, Asks on 'Every Israeli Citizen' to Protest". Haaretz. 2023-02-16. Retrieved 2023-09-06.
4. ^ "Ex-Mossad chief Pardo says Netanyahu should be put on trial if legal overhaul passes". Times of Israel. 2023-07-20. Retrieved 2023-09-06.
5. ^ Shamir, Jonathan (2023-07-23). "Ex-Mossad Chief Compares Israeli Right to the KKK". Haaretz. Retrieved 2023-09-06.
6. ^ "Ex-Mossad Chief Says He Questioned Legality of Netanyahu's Order to Prepare Iran Strike". Haaretz. 2023-05-31. Retrieved 2023-09-06.
7. ^ Gross, Judah Ari. "Netanyahu asked Shin Bet to tap phones of IDF, Mossad heads — report". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 2023-09-06.
8. ^ Harel, Amos (2018-06-01). "A Non-denial Denial: Did Netanyahu Ask ex-Shin Bet Chief to Tap IDF, Mossad Heads?". Haaretz. Retrieved 2023-09-06.
9. ^ Melman, Yossi (November 29, 2010). ראש המוסד הבא תמיר פרדו - מהתפקיד הזוטר ביותר עד לצמרת הארגון [Next Mossad chief Tamir Pardo—from the lowest job to the top of the organization]. Haaretz (in Hebrew). Retrieved August 26, 2014.
10. ^ Gross, Tom (December 12, 2010). "Egypt claims Mossad to blame for shark attacks (& details of new Mossad head)". Tom Gross Media. Retrieved August 26, 2014.
11. ^ Ulrike Putz (August 2, 2011). "Mossad Behind Tehran Assassinations, Says Source". Spiegel Online. Retrieved August 26, 2014.
12. ^ "'Mossad shot dead' Iranian scientist". The Sydney Morning Herald. AFP. August 2, 2011. Retrieved August 26, 2014.
13. ^ "Mossad behind murder of Iranian scientist". Middle East Online. August 2, 2011. Archived from the original on August 27, 2014. Retrieved August 26, 2014.
14. ^ "Der Spiegel: Israel killed Iranian". UPI. August 2, 2011. Retrieved August 26, 2014.
15. ^ "Israel's Mossad behind killing of Iranian scientist: report". IBN Live. August 2, 2011. Archived from the original on October 16, 2012. Retrieved August 26, 2014.
16. ^ Ofer Aderet (August 2, 2011). "Israel's new Mossad chief behind assassination of Iran nuclear scientist". Haaretz. Retrieved August 26, 2014.
17. ^ "Former Mossad director joins anti-Iran organization". Ynetnews. 18 June 2016.
18. ^ "UANI Expands Global Reach, Deepens Defense and Foreign Policy Expertise with New Advisory Board Members". United Against Nuclear Iran. 16 June 2016.
19. ^ "Cybersecurity startup XM Cyber acquired for $700 million by Schwarz Group". CTECH - www.calcalistech.com. 22 November 2021.
20. ^ "Ex-Mossad Chief Says He Questioned Legality of Netanyahu's Order to Prepare Iran Strike". Haaretz. May 31, 2018.
21. ^ Noa Landau,  https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-netanyahu-responds-to-ex-spy-chief-mossad-is-no-crime-organization-1.6138956 Former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo said it's 'a crime organization with a license.' Haaretz 3 June 2018.
22. ^ McGreal, Chris (6 September 2023). "Israel imposing apartheid on Palestinians, says former Mossad chief". The Guardian.
23. ^ "Former Mossad chief: Israel enforcing apartheid system against Palestinians". www.aljazeera.com. Al Jazeera. 6 September 2023.

Yossi Cohen - Wikipedia

Yosef "Yossi" Meir Cohen (Hebrew: יוסף מאיר כהן; born 10 September 1961)^[1] is a former Director of Mossad, the national intelligence agency of Israel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yossi_Cohen 

Yossi Cohen יוסי כהן

Yossi Cohen in 2016

Director of Mossad

In office
5 January 2016 – 1 June 2021

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Preceded by Tamir Pardo

Succeeded by David Barnea

9th National Security Advisor (Israel)

In office
August 2013 – January 2016

Preceded by Yaakov Amidror

Personal details

Born: 10 September 1961 (age 62)
Jerusalem

Early Life of Yossi Cohen

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, flanked by U.S. Special Envoy for Israeli–Palestinian Negotiations Frank Lowenstein and Israeli National Security Adviser Yossi Cohen, on 11 November 2015, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Cohen was born in Jerusalem to a religious family and grew up in the Katamon neighborhood. His father Aryeh was an eighth-generation Sabra who was descended from one of the founding families of the Mea Shearim neighborhood of Jerusalem. He worked in a senior position at Bank Mizrahi and was also an Irgun veteran.^[2] His mother Mina was a teacher and school principal.^[3] She was a seventh-generation Sabra, born to a Jewish family rooted in Hebron, now part of the West Bank.

Cohen was raised in a religious household and was a member of the Bnei Akiva religious Zionist youth movement. He attended the religious high school Yeshivat Or Etzion.^[2]

^{Career of Yossi Cohen}

Cohen was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces in 1979. He volunteered as a paratrooper in the 35th Paratroopers Brigade. He served as a soldier and a squad leader.^[4] After being discharged, he studied at university in London, and joined the Mossad in 1982. Cohen has been described as 'able to inspire the confidence of his charges'.^[5] He became a case officer, charged with recruiting and handling spies in foreign nations. While in training, he had been the only religious candidate in the Mossad's case officer course at the time.^[2] He ran agents in a number of countries over his career, and rose to lead the Mossad's collections division ("Tsomet").^[6] From 2011 to 2013, he was the deputy director of the Mossad,^[7] serving under Tamir Pardo. He was known publicly as "Y" (Hebrew: "י") in this post.^[8] Cohen won the prestigious Israel Security Prize for his Mossad work.^[9]

In August 2013, he was appointed the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. In December 2015, Cohen was appointed to succeed Tamir Pardo as director of the Mossad.^[10][11] and assumed office in January 2016. Cohen is one of the closest officials to Netanyahu.^[12]

In January 2018, Cohen oversaw the Mossad operation to steal Iran's secret nuclear archive in Tehran and smuggle it out of the country.^[12] According to the Jerusalem Post, a map of nuclear sites captured in the operation has not yet been made public.^[12] Among the assassinations attributed to the Mossad during Cohen's tenure were those of Hamas drone expert Mohamed Zouari in Tunisia, Hamas rocket expert Fadi Mohammad al-Batsh in Malaysia, and Iranian nuclear program chief Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in Iran.^[13][14][15]

Cohen has also been the chief Israeli official in charge of managing Israel's largely clandestine relations with various Arab nations. He has often met with representatives of Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar and helped negotiate Netanyahu's visit to Oman in 2018. Reportedly, he met Sudan's chief of intelligence, though the Sudanese intelligence service denied it. He was Israel's chief negotiator in arranging the Israel–United Arab Emirates peace agreement.^[16][17][18]

Intelligence reporter Ronen Bergman has written that Cohen has a reputation as a tough boss, that he speaks fluent English, French, and Arabic.^[19] He is also a marathon runner and is known as 'The Model' for his stylish appearance.^[5]

Netanyahu reportedly considered Cohen to be the best person to succeed him as prime minister when he leaves office.^[12] In September 2019, The Jerusalem Post listed Cohen as the most influential Jew of the year.^[20]

In June 2021, Cohen retired from Israel’s national intelligence agency^[21]

 Political Views of Yossi Cohen

At a conference in 2019 in Herzliya, Israel, Cohen announced that Israel has a unique window of opportunity to reach a comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinians. He stated that this is also the view of the Mossad unit whose job it is to analyze diplomatic opportunities. Given the present good relations with the United States, the Russian government, and restoration of partial diplomatic ties with the Arab states of the Persian Gulf centered around opposition to Iran, in Cohen's view there is a one-time opportunity for Middle East peace under terms very beneficial to Israel that the Israeli government must now seize.^[22]

The Jerusalem Post reported in September 2019 that Cohen "does not believe anything will move on the peace process until Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas leaves office."^[12]

Cohen and his wife Aya have four children.^[9] One of his sons, Yonatan, is a former officer in Unit 8200 and has cerebral palsy.^[23] He also has one granddaughter. Cohen lives in Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut and is a Masorti Jew.^[24]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Yossi Cohen.

• Yossi Melman, WHAT'S NEXT FOR THE CHARMING HEAD OF THE MOSSAD?, The Jerusalem Post, September 7, 2018
• Mossad Directors 
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• Yatom (1996–98)
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Current Head of Mossad David Barnea - Wikipedia

David Barnea

David "Dadi" Barnea 2003

David "Dadi" Barnea (Hebrew: דוד (דדי) ברנע; born 29 March 1965) is the current Director of the Mossad, having taken over from Yossi Cohen in June 2021.^[1]

^{Director of Mossad}

^{Incumbent Assumed office 1 June 2021}

^{Prime Minister}

^{Benjamin Netanyahu}

^{Naftali Bennett}

^{Yair Lapid}

Benjamin Netanyahu

Preceded by Yossi Cohen

Personal details

Born 29 March 1965 (age 58) Ashkelon, Israel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Barnea 

The Early Life of David "Dadi" Barnea

Barnea was born in Ashkelon and grew up in Rishon Lezion. His father, Joseph Brunner (Barnea), fled with his family from Nazi Germany and immigrated to Israel at the age of three. Joseph was a graduate of the Hapoel HaMizrachi Yeshiva in Bnei Brak and joined the Palmach at the age of 16. He fought with the Third Battalion of the organization in Nabi Yusha and Safed and then served as an officer with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Israeli Air Force. He was also a manager at Tadiran. His mother, Naomi, was born on board the SS Patria and worked as a teacher and school principal.^[2]

Barnea studied at the Military Boarding School for Command in Tel Aviv,⁣^[3] and enlisted in the IDF in 1983. He did his military service with the General Staff Reconnaissance Regiment (Sayeret Matkal). He later studied in the United States, obtaining a Bachelor's degree from the New York Institute of Technology and an MBA from Pace University. He then worked as a business manager at an investment bank in Israel.^[4]

David "Dadi" Barnea (Hebrew: דוד (דדי) ברנע; born 29 March 1965) is the current Director of the Mossad, having taken over from Yossi Cohen in June 2021.^[1]

^{Career of David "Dadi" Barnea} 

In 1996, Barnea joined the Mossad. He served in the Tzomet Division, commanding operational units in Israel and abroad. For two and a half years, he served as deputy head of the Keshet Division, which is tasked with infiltrating and monitoring targets. In 2013, he was appointed head of the Tzomet Division.^[5] While Barnea ran Tsomet, four awards for Israeli national security were presented to the division. In 2019, he was appointed deputy head of the Mossad. In June 2021, he was appointed head of the Mossad.

After the beginning of the war between 2023 Hamas and Israel, Barnea pushed for a deal with Hamas to secure the release of Israeli hostages. On November 9th, Barnea met with CIA Director William J. Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani in Doha. The possibilities of a ceasefire and the release of hostages were discussed. In addition to CIA chief Burns, Barnea was also included in the talks between US President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu about the release of hostages.^[6] Barnea prevailed against Netanyahu, who is said to have long preferred a purely military solution.^[7]

^{Personal Life of David "Dadi" Barnea} 

Barnea is married and is a father of four. He has a Haredi brother.^[8]

References on David "Dadi" Barnea

Mossad-Chef David Barnea gilt als Netanjahu-Gegner

David Barnea (r.) bei einem Treffen mit Benjamin Netanjahu (l.) im Januar 2023. © IMAGO/Koby Gideon/Israel Gpo

https://www.fr.de/politik/israel-hamas-mossad-chef-david-barnea-hamas-deal-netanjahu-gegner-justizreform-zr-92695048.html 

Seit 2021 ist David Barnea Direktor des Mossad. Der Leiter des mächtigen Geheimdiensts Israels begehrte in der Vergangenheit gegen die Pläne Netanjahus auf.

Tel Aviv – Als am 7. Oktober die Hamas in Israel einfiel und ihre terroristischen Anschläge verübte, stand auch der israelische Geheimdienst Mossad schnell im Mittelpunkt. Die sonst so gut informierte Institution wurde von dem Beginn des Krieges in Israel kalt erwischt und stand und steht dementsprechend in der Kritik. Nichtsdestoweniger kam Mossad-Chef David Barnea beim Deal mit der Hamas zur Freilassung der Geißeln eine wichtige Rolle zu.

Mossad-Direktor Barnea schon vor Gaza-Krieg kritisch gegenüber Netanjahu

Dass der Mossad auf die Anschläge der Hamas unvorbereitet war, hat nicht zu einem besseren Verhältnis zwischen Israels Ministerpräsidenten Benjamin Netanjahu und dem Direktor des Mossad, David Barnea, beigetragen. Doch es war wohl ohnehin schon seit längerem nicht von uneingeschränkten gegenseitigen Wohlwollen geprägt. Zumindest Barnea gilt keineswegs als Freund des eingeschlagenen Kurses Netanjahus in der Innenpolitik.

Im Zuge der Massenproteste gegen die umstrittene Justizreform soll David Barnea Treffen mit Mossad-Leuten einberufen haben, in denen er sich gegen die Reform ausgesprochen haben soll. Israelische Medien berichteten von zwei ihnen bekannten Sitzungen, in denen Barnea seinen Mitarbeitenden im Hinblick auf etwaige Folgen der Justizreform versicherte: Wenn es zu einer Verfassungskrise kommt, werde ich auf der richtigen Seite der Geschichte stehen – aber so weit sind wir noch nicht.“

Barnea gilt als Liberaler und steht damit der teils aus rechtsnationalen Parteien bestehenden Regierungskoalition wohl kritisch gegenüber. Den Angehörigen des Mossad, abgesehen von den Führungspersonen, stellte er frei, sich an den Protesten gegen die Justizreform zu beteiligen. Kernkritikpunkt an der Reform ist eine Schwächung des Obersten Gerichtshofs und damit eine Stärkung des Parlaments. Kritiker sehen die Gewaltenteilung im israelischen Staat in Gefahr.

Zvi Zamir

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zvi_Zamir

Zvi Zamir  צבי זמיר

 Zvi Zamir in 2004

 Zvi Zamir in 1979

 Zvi Zamir in 1960

Born Zvicka Zarzevsky

3 March 1925 Łódź, Poland

Died 2 January 2024 (aged 98) Tel Aviv, Israel

Nationality Israeli

Occupation Director of Mossad

Espionage activity

Allegiance  State of Israel

Service branch Palmach  Israel Defense Forces  Mossad

Service years 

Palmach: 1942–1948

IDF: 1948–1968 

Mossad: 1968–1974

Rank Major general

Zvi Zamir (Hebrew: צבי זמיר; born Zvicka Zarzevsky; 3 March 1925 – 2 January 2024) was a major general in the Israel Defense Forces and the director of the Mossad from 1968 to 1974.

Early Life of  Zvicka Zarzevsky

Born in Poland on 3 March 1925,^[1][2] Zamir immigrated with his family to the then British Mandate of Palestine when only seven months old. At the age of 18, Zamir began his military career, first as a soldier in the Haganah's Palmach, a unit that included future Israeli leaders such as Moshe Dayan and Yitzhak Rabin.

Intelligence career

IDF posts

During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Zamir fought in the newly created Israel Defense Forces as an infantry platoon leader. After the war he continued climbing the chain of command, becoming a licensed reconnaissance pilot for the Artillery branch, and was eventually promoted to the commander of the Southern Command. His final IDF post before being appointed Mossad director came in 1966, when he was appointed the military attaché to London.

Mossad

During his tenure at the Mossad, he helped carry out an assassination campaign, the Israeli response to the Munich Massacre, and dealt with the lead up and aftermath of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. After the West German government refused to accept an Israeli special forces team during the Munich hostage crisis, Zamir was sent to observe activities. He was at the Fürstenfeldbruck airbase the night that the failed rescue attempt left all nine remaining Israeli hostages dead. Zamir was interviewed about the incident in 1999 when he spoke with the producer of One Day in September, a documentary on the massacre. In it he strongly criticized the German rescue effort for its complete lack of coordination. He had previously been interviewed on this subject for an NBC profile during their coverage of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and he discussed the massacre several times thereafter.

Later life of  Zvicka Zarzevsky

Zamir was played by Ami Weinberg in Steven Spielberg's 2005 movie Munich.

His memoirs were published in Hebrew in 2011 under the title With Open Eyes (Be'einaim Pekuhot, בעיניים פקוחות‎).^[3]

Zamir lived in Zahala, a neighborhood in the north of Tel Aviv. He died on 2 January 2024, at the age of 98.^[4]

References

Further reading

• "Preventive measures" Zamir interview in 2006.
• One Day in September, (1999), a documentary by Kevin Macdonald.
• Raviv, Dan and Melman, Yossi. Every Spy a Prince: The Complete History of Israel's Intelligence Community. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990. ISBN 0-395-47102-8 p. 179

External links

• Itamar Eichner, Mossad chief in Yom Kippur War: Tell CIA No. 2 to kiss my ass, Ynetnews, 17 December 2019

Yitzhak Hofi

Yitzhak Hofi (Hebrew: יצחק חופי‎; 25 January 1927 – 15 September 2014) was a member of the Palmach, IDF General, chief of the Northern Command (Israel), and director of the Mossad.^[1]

^{Life of  Yitzhak Hofi}

Hofi was born in Tel Aviv. He joined the Haganah in 1944 and commanded a company in the Arab-Israeli War in 1948. He continued to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces in a variety of command, staff and training posts. He headed the Northern Command of the IDF during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. He was Acting Chief of Staff for a brief period in 1974, before retiring from the military and taking the post of director of Mossad. Before that he was a general in the Israeli Defense Forces in charge of the Northern Command.^[2]

In July 1976, Hofi lobbied strongly for a rescue mission to be mounted to save the large number of Israeli passengers on a hijacked Air France airliner flown to Entebbe International Airport in Uganda. In order to facilitate the resulting Operation Entebbe, Hofi directed Mossad katsas to survey the airport, and used contacts in Kenyan intelligence to allow the refueling of Israeli planes in Nairobi on the return journey.^{[citation needed]}

During his tenure as Director of the Mossad, Israel carried out Operation Opera, a surprise Israeli attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor in Osirak.^[3] In addition, the Mossad under his command assassinated a number of Palestinian terrorists, including Ali Hassan Salameh, chief of operations for the Black September Organization.^[4]

After retiring from the Mossad in 1982, Hofi served as director of the Israel Electric Corporation until 1990.^[5]

He died on 15 September 2014.^[5][3]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Black, Ian. Morris, Benny. Israel's Secret Wars: A History of Israel's Intelligence Services. New York: Grove Press, 1991. ISBN 0-8021-1159-9, 322 p.
• Central Intelligence Agency. "Israel. Foreign Intelligence and Security Services, 1979". Included in the volume "Documents from the US Espionage Den", Tehran, 1982.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Hofi

Heads of Northern Command 

v t e Heads of Northern Command

Carmel (1948–1949) Avidar (1949–1952) Dayan (1952) Simhoni (1952–1954) Tzadok (1954–1956) Rabin (1956–1959) Zorea (1959–1962) Yoffe (1962–1964) Elazar (1964–1969) Gur (1969–1972) Hofi (1972–1974) Gur (1974) Eitan (1974–1977) Ben-Gal (1977–1981) Drori (1981–1983) Orr (1983–1986) Peled (1986–1991) Mordechai (1991–1994) Levin (1994–1998) Ashkenazi (1998–2002) Gantz (2002–2005) Adam (2005–2006) Eizenkot (2006–2011) Golan (2011–2014) Kochavi (2014–2017) Strick (2017–2019) Baram (2019–2022) Gordin (2022–current)

Nahum Admoni

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahum_Admoni

Nahum Admoni (age 94)

Born 21st November  1929 (age 94)

Born 21st November  1929 Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine

Nationality Israeli

Occupation  Director-General of Mossad

Espionage activity

Allegiance   Israel

Service branch Mossad

Service years 1954–1989

Nahum Admoni (Hebrew: נחום אדמוני; born November 21, 1929) is an Israeli former intelligence officer who served as the Director-General of the Mossad from 1982 to 1989.

Nahum Admoni (Hebrew: נחום אדמוני; born November 21, 1929) is an Israeli former intelligence officer who served as the Director-General of the Mossad from 1982 to 1989.

Admoni was born in Jerusalem in Mandatory Palestine. His parents, Eliyahu and Sima Rothbaum, were middle-class Polish Jewish immigrants. Growing up, he studied at the Rehavia Gymnasium. In 1946, he enlisted in the Haganah and joined the Third Battalion of the Palmach. He fought in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War in the SHAI, the Haganah intelligence branch, and later in the military intelligence of the newly created Israel Defense Forces. He was discharged from the army in 1950 with the rank of Lieutenant. He then went to the United States and studied international relations at the University of California, Berkeley, returning to Israel in 1954. There he rejoined the Israeli intelligence community, working his way up the chain of command to be Mossad Director Yitzhak Hofi's deputy. In 1982 the designated director of the Mossad Yekutiel Adam was killed in 1982 Lebanon War and Admoni was chosen to replace him.

Shortly after becoming the Mossad Director the Sabra and Shatila massacre occurred. Admoni was criticized by the Kahan Commission for not warning the cabinet before allowing the Gemayel Phalangists into the camps, though no action against him was recommended. During his service as Mossad Director, Admoni watched over the Jonathan Pollard affair, in which it was revealed that Israel (though not the Mossad directly) was spying on the United States. He also endured the revelation of Israeli involvement in the Iran–Contra Affair and the public abduction of Mordechai Vanunu, who had revealed secrets of the Israeli nuclear weapons program to the British press. Admoni retired in 1989.

On August 28, 2006, he was appointed by prime minister Ehud Olmert to be chairman of an investigation committee, charged with investigating the actions of the government during the 2006 Lebanon War.^[1]

He is married to Nina Admoni (née Wertans), who was born in Poland, and was among the Jews who fled to China during World War II. She later moved to the United States, and met Nahum while he was studying in Berkeley. The couple married (they have two daughters Yael Lynne and Irit ) and moved to Israel when he returned there.^[2] He has served on the board of directors of several companies, including Mossad's pensioners association.

Notes

References

• Black, Ian. Morris, Benny. Israel's Secret Wars: A History of Israel's Intelligence Services. New York: Grove Press, 1991. ISBN 0-8021-1159-9, 427 p.

• Shabtai Shavit

• 

Born	17 July 1939 Nesher, Mandatory Palestine
Died	5 September 2023 (aged 84) Sicily, Italy
Nationality	Israeli
Alma mater	Harvard University[1]
Occupation	Director of Mossad
Espionage activity
Allegiance	State of Israel
Service branch	Mossad
Service years	1964–1996