Few intelligence services have built a reputation in the collective imagination comparable to that of the Mossad, the Israeli secret service primarily tasked with foreign intelligence and clandestine operations.
Calling it "the deadliest secret service in the world" does not mean establishing an objective ranking, impossible to formulate, but rather describing the reputation that Mossad has built over more than seventy years of activity: infiltrations, recruitment of agents, sabotage, clandestine captures, and targeted operations often conducted far from Israel's borders.
Its full name is HaMossad leModi'in uleTafkidim Meyuhadim, translatable as Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations.
But to understand its history, we must go back further, even before the birth of the State of Israel.
The origins of Israeli intelligence
During the British Mandate in Palestine, from 1920 to 1948, the organized Jewish community, the Yishuv, had already developed its own political, military, and informative structures. Within the Haganah, founded in 1920 and which became the main Jewish paramilitary organization, an intelligence structure known as Shai operated from 1940, an abbreviation of Sherut Yediot, the "Information Service".
The Shai performed an extremely delicate task.
It gathered information on British authorities, Arab organizations, armed movements present in the territory, and more generally on everything that could represent a threat to the Jewish community.
It was not merely espionage in the strict sense.
The service sought to build a network of sources, observers, and contacts capable of providing indications on troop movements, military preparations, political relations, and possible attacks.
Already at this stage, a characteristic emerged that was destined to remain central even after 1948: for a numerically inferior community surrounded by potential adversaries, intelligence had to compensate for the lack of strategic depth and numerical superiority.
In the years immediately preceding Israel's birth, intelligence work became even more important.
Tension between the Jewish community, British authorities, and the Arab population was constantly increasing, while it became increasingly likely that the end of the Mandate would produce large-scale military confrontation.
The United Nations decision on 29 November 1947 to approve the partition plan for Palestine accelerated this dynamic further.
Violence between Arab and Jewish communities increased rapidly, and the Haganah found itself preparing not only to defend individual settlements, but to sustain a conflict that could decide the very survival of the future State.
In this context, information on opposing forces, lines of communication, populated centers, weaponry and possible directions of attack acquired an immediately operational value.
When David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, the intelligence structure inherited from the Yishuv underwent a profound transformation.
The next day, the armies of several Arab countries entered the conflict.
The new State found itself, therefore, from its very first hours of existence, engaged in an existential war.
Israel did not yet have consolidated institutions, stabilized borders or fully organized military structures.
In those conditions, knowing in advance the political intentions, troop movements, weaponry and capabilities of opponents became a strategic necessity.
The Shai apparatus was progressively dismantled and its functions redistributed among new State structures.
Part of the competencies went to military intelligence, another to internal security, while activities directed abroad began to be organized separately.
It was the beginning of that division which, in the following years, would lead to the formation of the three major pillars of Israeli intelligence: Aman for military intelligence, Shin Bet for internal security and Mossad for foreign intelligence.
The construction of a service intended to operate outside national borders was strongly desired by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.
For Israel, in fact, it was not enough to know what was happening immediately at its own borders.
It was necessary to build intelligence networks abroad, understand the relations between Arab countries, follow their military programs, identify possible sources and establish confidential relations also with foreign governments and services.
In 1949 a central structure was thus established to coordinate intelligence activities and relations with foreign services, the nucleus of the organization that would later become the modern Mossad.
At its head was placed Reuven Shiloah, a diplomat and intelligence officer very close to Ben-Gurion.
Shiloah had already developed deep experience in the clandestine and diplomatic relations of the Zionist movement and contributed to developing one of the fundamental characteristics of the new service: the ability to combine intelligence, secret diplomacy and confidential international relations.
In the early years, one of the priorities was precisely the construction of links with Western intelligence services and with countries that, while not necessarily maintaining public relations with Israel, could share common strategic interests.
The geographical position of the new State indeed attributed to Israel a growing potential value within the framework of the emerging Cold War.
The Middle East was becoming one of the main areas of competition between the United States and the Soviet Union, and the information gathered in the region could be of interest far beyond Israeli borders.
In 1952, Reuven Shiloah left the leadership of the service and was succeeded by Isser Harel.
With Harel, a different phase began.
The Mossad progressively assumed a more defined structure and a strongly operational approach.
Harel, who had already held leading roles in Israeli internal security, believed that intelligence should not be limited to passive information gathering.
The service had to be capable of identifying threats, penetrating them, and, when necessary, contributing directly to their neutralization.
It was during the nineteen-fifties that those networks of agents, sources, diplomatic contacts, and clandestine structures began to develop, which would allow Israel to operate far beyond its own territory.
For a young, small country surrounded by States with much larger populations and territories, intelligence was considered from the outset an essential component of national security.
Israel could not afford to discover a threat only when it had already reached its borders.
It had to try to identify it beforehand.
Thus was born a philosophy destined to characterize Israeli intelligence for decades: gather information not only to know the enemy, but to provide the government with the time and tools necessary to intervene before a threat became uncontrollable.
That approach would quickly take the Mossad beyond Israeli borders, transforming it from the young service of a newly born State into one of the most important instruments of Israel's national security strategy.
1960: Adolf Eichmann Found in Argentina
One of the most celebrated operations in the history of world intelligence had Adolf Eichmann as its target, an SS officer and one of the principal architects responsible for the logistical organization of the deportation of European Jews to ghettos, concentration camps, and extermination centers during the Holocaust.
After the defeat of Nazi Germany, Eichmann initially managed to evade capture. After passing through various hideouts in Europe, he eventually managed to reach South America thanks to the clandestine networks used by numerous former Nazis to leave the continent.
He settled in Argentina, a country that in the postwar period had welcomed several German citizens, and where Eichmann was able to lead a relatively anonymous life for years.
He used the false name Ricardo Klement and lived with his family in the Buenos Aires area.
His identification was not immediate. The first information about Eichmann's presence in Argentina emerged through a complex network of reports and verifications, which required the Israelis to establish whether the man known as Ricardo Klement was really the former SS officer being sought.
Agents had to observe his habits, reconstruct his movements and compare the elements collected with the available information about Eichmann's past.
When his identity was deemed sufficiently certain, Israel decided to intervene clandestinely.
The operation was conducted under the responsibility of Isser Harel, then heading the Mossad, who personally followed the decisive phase of the mission.
On May 11, 1960, while Eichmann was returning to his home in the Buenos Aires area, an Israeli team intercepted him along the route.
Agents quickly stopped him, loaded him into a vehicle and transferred him to a safe house, where he was held secretly while his transfer out of the country was being organized.
For several days Eichmann remained under the control of the Israeli team.
The main problem was no longer simply capturing him, but managing to get him out of Argentina without attracting the attention of local authorities.
The opportunity came in conjunction with an official Israeli visit to the country. Eichmann was therefore prepared to be transported clandestinely aboard an Israeli aircraft bound for home.
The prisoner thus left Argentina without the Buenos Aires government having been previously informed of the operation.
His arrival in Israel had enormous international impact.
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion publicly announced that Adolf Eichmann had been captured and was in Israeli custody.
The trial, held in Jerusalem in 1961, became one of the most followed judicial events of the postwar period. Dozens of Holocaust survivors were called to testify, helping to bring before international public opinion not only Eichmann's individual responsibilities, but also the systematic dimension of the extermination of European Jews.
Eichmann was found guilty, sentenced to death and executed in 1962.
For Israel the operation represented a success of enormous symbolic, political and operational value: one of the principal organizers of the Nazi deportation machine had been identified thousands of kilometers away, captured and brought before an Israeli court.
But the success also had a diplomatic cost.
Argentina formally denounced the violation of its territorial sovereignty, arguing that the Israeli action had been conducted illegally on its territory without any authorization. The matter also reached the United Nations and provoked serious tension in relations between the two countries.
The Eichmann case thus showed early on one of the characteristics that would accompany numerous Israeli clandestine operations in the decades that followed: the ability to act beyond national borders could produce extraordinary results on the operational level, but at the same time generate extremely heavy diplomatic and political consequences.
It was also a demonstration of a principle that would become central to Israeli intelligence culture: geographical distance and the passage of years did not necessarily guarantee impunity for those considered responsible for crimes against the Jewish people.
Operation Damocles: German scientists and Nasser's missiles
In the early 1960s Israel identified a new threat coming from Gamal Abdel Nasser's Egypt.
Cairo had launched a program to develop surface-to-surface missiles and had recruited numerous German scientists and technicians, some of whom had gained experience in the aerospace and missile sector during or immediately after World War II.
For Israel the prospect was extremely concerning.
Egypt then represented one of the main military adversaries of the State and the possibility that it could have missiles capable of reaching Israeli territory was considered a strategic threat.
Mossad therefore began seeking information on the program.
Activities included document collection, monitoring of European companies used to purchase components, and attempts to identify the men involved in the project.
According to subsequent reconstructions, the Israelis also managed to penetrate some of the logistical networks used by the Egyptians in Europe, obtaining classified documentation that allowed for a better understanding of the scope and organization of the program.
However, the matter quickly assumed a much more aggressive dimension.
Between 1962 and 1963 some of the German scientists and technicians connected to the Egyptian program were subjected to pressure and intimidation. Packages and explosive letters were also sent, while other men involved in the project were approached or threatened to interrupt their collaboration with Cairo.
The sum of these activities became known as Operation Damocles.
The Israeli objective was essentially to make it increasingly difficult for Egypt to maintain the personnel and expertise necessary to develop its own missiles.
But the operation also caused strong controversy within the Israeli political apparatus itself.
The debate over how to deal with German scientists and relations with West Germany contributed to tensions between Isser Harel and David Ben-Gurion's government.
In 1963 Harel left the direction of Mossad, closing one of the most important phases in the early history of the service.
The case of German scientists demonstrated, however, how much the Israeli concept of intelligence had already changed.
It was no longer merely a matter of discovering what weapons an adversary possessed.
The objective became to identify in advance the programs that could have produced those weapons and, when deemed necessary, to try to prevent or slow down their development.
It was a logic of preventive counter-proliferation that would resurface many times in the subsequent history of Israeli intelligence.
A MiG-21 arrives in Israel
In the 1960s, the Mossad began to devote an increasing portion of its activities to gathering information on the military capabilities of Arab countries bordering Israel.
In a Middle East increasingly marked by the confrontation between Israel and countries supported by the Soviet Union, knowing in advance the weaponry, doctrines, and operational capabilities of the adversary became a strategic priority.
One of the most coveted objectives was the MiG-21, one of the most modern and widespread Soviet fighters of the era.
The aircraft had entered service with several Arab air forces, including those of Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, and represented one of the main threats Israeli pilots could encounter in case of war.
Israel possessed technical information and intelligence reports on the Soviet fighter, but studying an operational example directly would have had a completely different value.
Really knowing an aircraft meant being able to verify its acceleration, speed, maneuverability, range, performance at different altitudes, visibility from the cockpit, onboard systems, and above all its strengths and vulnerabilities.
The Israeli objective thus became extremely ambitious: to obtain an intact MiG-21.
Several attempts to persuade Arab pilots to defect initially did not produce the desired result. The breakthrough came with the pilot of the Iraqi Air Force Munir Redfa, an experienced officer who agreed to leave his country and deliver his aircraft to the Israelis.
The operation, which became known as Operation Diamond, required lengthy preparation.
It was not merely a matter of convincing a pilot to defect. It was necessary to plan the route, ensure that the MiG had sufficient fuel, prevent it from being intercepted by Iraqi air defense or that of the countries traversed, and coordinate the arrival of the aircraft in Israeli airspace without risking it being mistaken for a hostile aircraft.
On August 16, 1966, Redfa took off from Iraq aboard his own MiG-21 and headed toward Israel.
Once he approached Israeli airspace, he was intercepted and escorted by Israeli Air Force fighters until landing.
For Israel, it was a success of enormous importance.
For the first time, Israeli specialists were able to directly analyze one of the main Soviet fighters used by Arab air forces.
The MiG-21 was subjected to a series of thorough tests. Israeli test pilots flew it to understand its real characteristics, studying its behavior, performance, and limitations.
That information made it possible to develop more effective tactics for confronting it in combat.
It was therefore not just a technical success, but an operational advantage that could be immediately transferred to units of the Israeli Air Force.
A few months later, during the Six-Day War of 1967, Israeli pilots would find themselves facing precisely those types of aircraft in the air forces of Arab countries.
The importance of the captured aircraft, however, went beyond Israeli borders.
The United States was also extremely interested in learning the real capabilities of the MiG-21, which represented one of the main Soviet combat platforms and was also deployed in other theaters of the Cold War.
The aircraft and the information obtained from Israeli tests thus became valuable for Washington as well, contributing to the study of the most effective tactics against fighters of Soviet manufacture.
Operation Diamond perfectly demonstrated one of the fundamental principles of Israeli military intelligence: not limiting itself to gathering information from the outside, but seeking, whenever possible, to directly get its hands on the opponent's systems.
A single aircraft, obtained through a complex clandestine operation, could provide information that would have been extremely difficult to acquire during real combat.
Munir Redfa's MiG-21 thus became much more than a simple captured aircraft.
It represented an authentic intelligence treasure, capable of transforming a clandestine operation into a concrete advantage for Israeli pilots and, indirectly, also for Western allies.
The episode perfectly encapsulated the logic that would characterize many Israeli operations: to clandestinely obtain what on the battlefield would have cost much more in men, equipment, and risks.
1968: the mystery of uranium lost in the Mediterranean
Two years after the arrival of the Iraqi MiG-21, another covert operation showed how Israeli intelligence was now able to operate within European commercial and industrial networks.
The affair would become known as Operation Plumbat.
In 1968, approximately 200 tons of concentrated uranium oxide, the so-called yellowcake, were purchased in Europe and loaded in Antwerp on board the merchant ship Scheersberg A.
Formally, the material was supposed to reach Italy.
During the voyage, however, the cargo disappeared.
When the ship reappeared, the uranium was no longer on board.
Only later did a complex network of companies, intermediaries, and commercial transactions emerge, used to conceal the material's true destination.
Journalistic reconstructions, subsequent studies, and U.S. documents linked the operation to Israeli intelligence and in particular to a structure involving men from Mossad and LAKAM, the Israeli organization responsible for scientific intelligence. Documents published by the National Security Archive attribute to Rafi Eitan, then a senior Israeli operational official, a role in organizing the operation that led to the diversion of 200 tons of yellowcake.
The material would have been transferred clandestinely during navigation in the Mediterranean through a complex maritime operation.
The name Plumbat itself was derived from the cover used in the cargo documentation, recalling the Latin plumbum, lead.
The objective was linked to the needs of the Israeli nuclear program and the Dimona reactor.
Precisely because of the extremely sensitive nature of the Israeli nuclear dossier, much of the affair remained shrouded in secrecy for years, and even today some details are reconstructed mainly through foreign documentation and subsequent historical investigations.
The case is nevertheless significant for understanding the evolution of Israeli intelligence.
There were no men to capture, no bases to assault, or planes to be hijacked.
The target was a strategic raw material, moved through commercial companies, ships, international contracts, and front companies.
Operational capability thus consisted in manipulating an apparently normal logistics chain until the material reached where it was truly needed.
If Operation Diamond had allowed Israel to get its hands on one of the Soviet Union's most valuable military technologies, Plumbat showed another face of intelligence: the ability to intervene clandestinely in international industrial and commercial networks to acquire resources considered strategic.
Munich 1972
The moment that more than any other contributed to building the Mossad's international reputation arrived in September 1972.
The Munich Olympics were supposed to represent for West Germany the image of a modern, democratic country far from the legacy of Nazism. The Olympic village had been designed precisely to convey an open and informal climate, with security measures deliberately less oppressive than one might have expected from an event of that magnitude.
It was in that context that, in the night between September 4 and 5, 1972, a group of men belonging to the Palestinian organization Black September managed to penetrate inside the Olympic village.
Their target was the Israeli delegation.
The attackers reached the apartments occupied by Israeli athletes and coaches and forced their way inside.
Two members of the Israeli team, Moshe Weinberg and Yossef Romano, were killed in the early stages of the attack.
Nine other members of the delegation were taken hostage.
The Black September men made precise demands, including the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons.
From that moment began a long and dramatic negotiation, followed live by media outlets around the world.
Israel maintained a rigid stance, refusing to negotiate the release of prisoners in exchange for the hostages.
Meanwhile, West German authorities were trying to find a solution to the crisis.
Various intervention scenarios were developed, but the management of the operation proved extremely complex.
At the time, West Germany did not yet have an anti-terrorism structure specialized comparable to the units that would be created in the following years precisely as a consequence of Munich.
In the end, a plan was organized to transfer attackers and hostages from the Olympic village to the military airport of Fürstenfeldbruck, with the stated prospect of providing them with an airplane.
In reality, the German authorities intended to use the transfer to attempt a rescue operation.
The plan failed.
Once they arrived at the airport, the situation quickly escalated into a firefight.
The attempt by German forces to neutralize the attackers had been prepared with incomplete information and without even precise knowledge of the actual number of terrorists.
After hours of tension, the crisis ended in the worst possible way.
All nine Israeli hostages died, five of the attackers, and one German police officer.
In total, eleven Israelis were killed in the attack.
For Israel, it was a national shock.
The images from Munich were broadcast around the world and the attack immediately took on enormous symbolic significance.
It was not merely the killing of Israeli athletes during the most important international sporting event.
For the government and for a significant portion of Israeli public opinion, Munich represented proof that Israeli citizens and Jews could be targeted even far from the Middle East, in the heart of Europe and in front of televisions around the world.
The attack also had profound consequences on the way Israel would confront international terrorism in the years to come.
The government led by Golda Meir authorized a covert campaign against men believed to be involved in the organization, planning, or support of the Munich attack.
The objective was not only to strike at those directly responsible, but also to weaken the operational and logistical structures used by Palestinian organizations abroad.
Thus began a long series of operations conducted in various European and Middle Eastern countries.
Surveillance, intelligence, infiltration, target identification, and covert operations became part of a campaign destined to continue for years.
That campaign would become known primarily by the name Operation Wrath of God.
The Mossad assumed a central role in the search for men whom Israel believed to be connected to the Black September network.
But the campaign would also demonstrate all the risks of this kind of operation.
Acting covertly in foreign territory meant operating without the margin of error allowed in a normal military operation.
A mistaken identification, a discovered agent, or a failed operation could quickly transform into an international diplomatic crisis.
And that is precisely what would happen less than a year after Munich, in a small Norwegian city destined to become one of the most controversial episodes in the history of the Mossad: Lillehammer.
The hunt for September Black operatives
In the years following the Munich attack, Israel launched a long covert campaign against men believed to be involved in the planning, logistical support, or operational structures linked to September Black and other Palestinian organizations.
Several figures were identified in Europe and the Middle East and became targets of operations attributed to Israeli intelligence.
The main difficulty was not only locating the wanted men, but doing so in foreign countries, often without the official support of local authorities.
This is why preparatory work became fundamental.
Agents had to reconstruct habits, movements, personal contacts, frequented places, and security systems of targets.
This was followed by weeks or months of surveillance, information verification, and operational preparation.
Surveillance often represented the longest phase.
A man could be followed for days just to understand where he actually lived, what means of transport he used, who he met with, and when he was most vulnerable.
Every detail could become important.
A frequently visited restaurant, a telephone booth, a route traveled every morning, a recurring appointment, or a sudden change in routine could confirm or contradict an entire investigative reconstruction.
To allow agents to operate without attracting attention, false documents, cover identities, temporary apartments, rented vehicles, and safe houses were used.
Teams could be composed of men and women with different tasks: those conducting surveillance, those maintaining communications, those organizing logistics, and those intervening in the final phase.
The objective was to minimize any element that could directly link the operation to the State of Israel.
The missions therefore required a combination of intelligence, planning, and patience.
In some cases, targets were followed through multiple countries before a situation considered favorable presented itself.
In others, the information gathered led to the abandonment of the operation or the need to start over.
The campaign progressively assumed an international dimension.
The wanted men could be found in Rome, Paris, Athens, Beirut, or other European and Middle Eastern cities, forcing Israeli intelligence to build support networks capable of operating far from their own territory.
This very capacity contributed to creating the reputation that would follow the Mossad for decades.
In the international imagination, the idea took shape of a service capable of following a target for months or years, reconstructing its network of relationships and reaching it practically wherever it was found.
A reputation fueled also by the secret nature of the operations.
For a long time many details remained unknown, while journalistic reconstructions, testimonies and subsequent publications contributed to transforming some missions into almost legendary episodes.
The reality, however, was far more complex.
Operating clandestinely in foreign territory meant assuming enormous risks.
Agents could be discovered, arrested or identified by local security services.
A fake passport could be checked, a surveillance could be noticed and a single incorrect piece of information could compromise months of preparation.
Above all, the entire operation depended on the correct identification of the target.
In an activity often conducted through indirect sources, photographs, testimonies and remote surveillance, even an extremely prepared service could make mistakes.
The campaign following Munich therefore helped consolidate the Mossad's reputation, but simultaneously showed the fundamental limitation of any intelligence organization: the quality of an operation depends on the quality of the information on which it is built.
And precisely during the hunt for men believed to be connected to September Black, one of the most serious errors in the history of the Israeli service occurred.
In July 1973, in the Norwegian town of Lillehammer, an Israeli team identified as its target a man who actually had nothing to do with the Palestinian organization.
What should have been another chapter in the campaign begun after Munich turned into an international case and a heavy setback for the Mossad.
Lillehammer: the error that cost dearly
On 21 July 1973, in the quiet Norwegian town of Lillehammer, an Israeli team was convinced it had finally identified one of the most wanted men in the Palestinian network: Ali Hassan Salameh, considered by Israel a leading figure of September Black.
Salameh had long been in the sights of Israeli services.
His figure was surrounded by an important reputation within Palestinian organizations and the Israelis believed he had played a role in operational activities and in supporting the network responsible for the Munich attack.
When a team of agents spotted a man in Norway who appeared to match Salameh's description, surveillance activity immediately began.
The man was followed in his movements, observed from a distance and progressively identified by the agents as the wanted person.
But something in the verification chain did not work.
The identification was wrong.
On the evening of July 21, the man was reached near his home and killed.
Only after the action did the truth emerge.
The victim was not Ali Hassan Salameh.
It was Ahmed Bouchiki, a Moroccan waiter who lived in Lillehammer and had no connection to Black September or Palestinian terrorist organizations.
Bouchiki had a completely different life from the man the Israelis were looking for.
The error was devastating.
It was not merely the failure of a covert operation, but the killing of a person unrelated to the intended target.
Furthermore, the action did not go unnoticed.
The Norwegian police immediately launched an investigation and managed to quickly reconstruct a substantial part of the network involved in the operation.
Some members of the team were arrested.
The investigations allowed Norwegian authorities to acquire information about the identities used by the agents, cover documents, contacts, movements and operational methods of the team.
For a clandestine service, it was enormous damage.
A failed operation had not only caused the death of an innocent person, but had also exposed methods, structures and connections that normally should have remained hidden.
The case quickly assumed an international dimension.
Norway protested strongly and the incident caused serious diplomatic embarrassment for Israel.
For the Mossad, Lillehammer became one of the most cited cases when discussing the limits and risks of covert operations conducted on foreign territory.
The central point was not merely the final error.
The failure concerned the entire process that had led to the identification of the target.
Incomplete information, insufficient confirmations and a misguided assessment had transformed an operation planned to strike a Palestinian leader into the killing of an innocent man.
It was one of the harshest blows to the reputation of the Israeli service.
It demonstrated that even an apparatus considered extremely effective could fail when operational pressure, haste or insufficient quality of intelligence led to treating as certain an identification that was not certain.
And above all, it showed how high the price of an error in this type of operation could be.
A mistake did not simply mean losing a target.
It could mean killing the wrong person, exposing agents, compromising clandestine networks and triggering a diplomatic crisis.
Ali Hassan Salameh, the actual target of the team, continued instead to live for several more years.
The Israelis continued to search for him.
In 1979, in Beirut, Salameh died in the explosion of a car bomb in an operation generally attributed to Israeli intelligence.
The long hunt thus concluded years later, but Lillehammer remained in Mossad history as a permanent warning.
No intelligence service, however expert and aggressive, is immune to error.
And in the world of clandestine operations, a single identification error can cost far more than the failure of the mission itself.
1973: Operation Spring of Youth
The campaign following the Munich Olympics massacre was not composed exclusively of operations conducted by small clandestine groups.
In some cases the intelligence provided by Mossad was combined directly with the operational capability of the Israeli Defense Forces and special units.
One of the most spectacular examples came during the night of April 9 to 10, 1973.
The operation targeted various representatives and infrastructure of the PLO in Lebanon and would become known as the Operation Spring of Youth.
The plan provided for striking multiple targets simultaneously in Beirut and Sidon, exploiting the element of surprise.
Men from Sayeret Matkal, paratrooper units and Israeli naval commandos participated.
The forces departed from Israel by sea and reached the Lebanese coast using light craft.
But even before the military arrived, Mossad had performed an essential part of the work.
Israeli agents had prepared the logistics on the ground, gathered information on the targets and organized vehicles that would allow the commandos to move through Beirut without immediately attracting attention.
According to Israeli official reconstruction, Mossad agents waited for the units on the beach with rental cars, ready to transfer the various groups to their assigned objectives.
Among the commanders who participated was also Ehud Barak, then commander of the Sayeret Matkal.
To move through the city without immediately appearing as a military squad, some group members used civilian disguises; Barak entered Beirut disguised as a woman.
The main targets included three important Palestinian leaders: Mohammed Youssef al-Najjar, known as Abu Youssef, Kamal Adwan and Kamal Nasser.
Other units struck structures and installations linked to Palestinian organizations.
The operation lasted overall just a few hours.
The three leaders were killed and Israeli forces also recovered documentation from the targeted objectives. Two Israeli soldiers died during the operation.
Spring of Youth represented a particularly effective example of the integration between clandestine intelligence and special operations.
The Mossad did not constitute the assault force.
Its task was to create the conditions for that force to reach the heart of the Lebanese capital, find the targets and move in hostile territory with information and support already prepared.
It was a formula destined to become recurring in Israeli operations: intelligence identified and prepared the target; special forces intervened when a military capability superior to that of a clandestine squad was necessary.
And all this happened just three months before the Lillehammer error.
The contrast is significant.
In April 1973 one of the most complex operations conducted against Palestinian structures succeeded in bringing Israeli commandos to the heart of Beirut.
Beyond clandestine operations
The notoriety of operations against terrorists, leaders of hostile organizations and targets considered strategic has often produced a partial, and in some cases distorted, image of the Mossad.
In the collective imagination the Israeli service is associated above all with clandestine missions conducted abroad, false identities, surveillance and high-risk operations.
But this representation describes only part of the work of an intelligence service.
Daily activity is much broader, slower and less visible.
It means first of all gathering information.
Political, military, economic and technological information that enables the Israeli government to understand what is happening outside its borders and, above all, what might happen in the future.
One of the fundamental tasks consists in recruiting human sources.
A civil servant, a military officer, a diplomat, a technician, an entrepreneur or a person embedded in an organization considered of interest can become a source capable of providing information impossible to obtain through other means.
Identifying these individuals, understanding their motivations, approaching them and building a clandestine relationship over time represents one of the most delicate aspects of intelligence work.
To this is added the need to penetrate hostile organizations.
Knowing from within a political, military or terrorist structure means being able to understand not only what it has already done, but also what its intentions are, what operations it is preparing, which men hold decisive roles and what vulnerabilities can be exploited.
To operate abroad, clandestine infrastructure is also needed.
Cover identities, documents, safe houses, front companies, protected communication systems and logistical networks allow agents to move without being immediately linked to the State of Israel.
Much of this work may require months or years without producing any visible results externally.
Another component concerns the collection and analysis of documents, communications and technical information.
A military report, an industrial plan, documentation on a new weapons system or a confidential conversation can have strategic value greater than that of many spectacular operations.
The objective is not simply to accumulate data.
The true task of intelligence consists in transforming that data into an answer to a government's fundamental questions: what is the adversary doing, what can it do and above all what does it intend to do?
From this point of view, Mossad represents only part of a much more articulated Israeli apparatus.
Alongside it operates Shin Bet, also known as Shabak, charged mainly with internal security, counterintelligence and countering terrorist threats within Israel and in the territories where it exercises its competencies.
There is also Aman, the military intelligence directorate of the Israeli Defense Forces.
Its task is to collect and analyze information relating to the military capabilities of adversaries, armies in the region, weapons systems, deployed forces and possible threats against Israel.
Mossad operates instead predominantly on the level of foreign intelligence.
Its activity is therefore directed mainly outside Israeli borders, through information gathering, clandestine relations, human sources and operations conducted in foreign countries.
The competencies of different organizations can naturally overlap.
A terrorist threat may have an internal component and a network abroad; a foreign military program may simultaneously concern military and foreign intelligence; an organization may be observed by multiple structures with different tools.
This very division makes it possible to better understand the nature of the Israeli system.
Mossad is not an isolated organism and does not represent the country's entire intelligence apparatus by itself.
It is one of the tools through which Israel seeks to obtain an informational advantage in a regional environment that, since the birth of the State, has been characterized by wars, terrorism, geopolitical rivalries and military threats.
The most celebrated clandestine operations are therefore only the visible part of a much broader activity.
Behind a successful mission there can be years of information gathering, dozens of sources, cross-referenced analyses, verification, surveillance and clandestine diplomatic work.
And this is probably precisely the true core of the intelligence profession: knowing something before others and understanding its meaning before that information becomes obvious to everyone.
The Eighties and Nineties
After the phase dominated by the hunt for men from Palestinian organizations and the typical confrontation of the Cold War, Mossad had to adapt rapidly to a transforming Middle East.
Threats did not disappear, but changed in nature.
International terrorism continued to represent a priority, but alongside it, the proliferation of non-conventional weapons, the development of missile programs, relations between Arab states, networks of clandestine financing and the emergence of new armed organizations capable of operating beyond national borders assumed increasing importance.
The leadership of the service alternated among directors such as Yitzhak Hofi, Nahum Admoni, Shabtai Shavit and Danny Yatom, each called to manage a different phase of Israeli strategic evolution.
But the eighties also showed a different face of Mossad.
The same clandestine structures built to spy, infiltrate hostile organizations or reach objectives abroad could also be used for a completely different mission: bring thousands of people out of a country without revealing the existence of the operation.
Operation Moses: A Clandestine Escape to Israel
One of the most distinctive chapters in the service's history concerned the fate of Ethiopian Jews, many of whom sought to leave Ethiopia by clandestinely crossing the border into Sudan.
The journey was extremely dangerous.
Entire families traveled on foot enormous distances to Sudanese refugee camps, facing hunger, disease, violence, and extremely harsh environmental conditions.
According to the Knesset, approximately 4,000 members of the Ethiopian community died during the journey or in refugee camps in the attempt to reach Israel.
For the Israeli government the problem was particularly complex.
Sudan did not maintain diplomatic relations with Israel and openly organizing the transfer of thousands of people would have been politically impossible.
It was therefore necessary to build a clandestine network.
Mossad began operating in the region by creating secret channels to identify, group, and transfer Ethiopian Jews who had managed to reach Sudanese territory.
Over time various evacuation systems were used and the operations involved Mossad, the Israeli government, the Israeli Defense Forces, and other agencies.
One of the most surprising aspects of this activity was the ability to construct apparently normal covers behind which to hide the operations.
Agents had to move in a hostile country, maintain contacts with people scattered in refugee camps, organize transfers, and coordinate evacuations without attracting the attention of the authorities and organizations present in the territory.
The largest operation began in November 1984.
It would become known as Operation Moses.
Through a complex system of confidential agreements and clandestine transfers, thousands of Ethiopian Jews were taken out of Sudanese refugee camps and transferred to Israel.
Israeli sources generally indicate approximately 8,000 people evacuated through the operation and related activities.
Secrecy was fundamental.
A public disclosure would have seriously complicated the Sudanese government and made it politically impossible to continue the evacuation.
And it is precisely what happened.
When the existence of the operation became public in early 1985, political pressures led to an early interruption of the transfers.
Numerous people remained in Africa and some families were separated.
Israel, however, continued to organize other operations in the following years to transfer the Ethiopian community.
The most spectacular chapter would come in May 1991, with Operation Solomon, when over 14,000 Ethiopian Jews were transferred to Israel in just over a day through a massive airlift.
Operation Moses thus showed a side of the Mossad very different from the one that became famous after Eichmann, Munich, or Lillehammer.
The ability to build clandestine identities, logistical networks, secret contacts, and infiltration routes could be employed not to reach a target, but to organize a gigantic evacuation operation.
It was one of the most evident demonstrations of how broad the scope of action of Israeli intelligence could be.
Lebanon, Hezbollah and a New Threat
While the Mossad was conducting operations like Moses, the regional strategic situation was becoming increasingly complex.
The Lebanese civil war, Israeli intervention in Lebanon, and the growing activity of armed organizations in the country transformed the northern front into one of the main theaters of Israeli intelligence operations.
It was precisely in Lebanon that Hezbollah began to emerge with increasing force, a Shiite organization supported by Iran and destined to become one of Israel's main adversaries.
The Mossad therefore had to confront an enemy different from the Palestinian organizations that had dominated the previous years.
Hezbollah had strong territorial roots, a progressively more organized structure, external support, and a growing capacity to conduct military and terrorist operations.
Understanding the organization's structure, its international connections, sources of funding, and relations with Tehran progressively became one of Israeli intelligence's priorities.
At the same time, Israel continued to closely observe military developments in the countries of the region.
The war between Iran and Iraq, fought between 1980 and 1988, profoundly modified the balance of power in the Middle East and required Israeli services to understand not only the military capabilities of the two countries, but also the strategic consequences of a conflict destined to reshape alliances and power relations.
The Nineties and the end of the Cold War
In the Nineties the picture changed once again.
The end of the Cold War modified global intelligence priorities, while the Israeli-Palestinian peace process simultaneously opened new political possibilities and new vulnerabilities.
The Mossad continued to gather information on regional governments, armed organizations and terrorist networks, but increasingly greater attention was devoted to technological and military programs capable of modifying the strategic balance of the Middle East.
Intelligence was becoming progressively more technical.
It was no longer enough to identify men, organizations and military movements.
It was necessary to monitor industrial companies, international suppliers, technological transfers, scientific programs, dual-use components, missiles and strategic infrastructures.
In this new scenario a dossier began slowly to prevail over the others.
Iran.
Iran becomes the priority
After the Islamic revolution of 1979, relations between Tehran and Israel changed radically.
Over the following years Iran became increasingly important in Israeli strategic assessment, both for the support provided to organizations hostile to Israel and for the development of its own military capabilities.
Particular attention began to concentrate on the Iranian nuclear program and the development of ballistic missiles.
For Israel, the possibility that Iran could acquire the necessary capabilities to produce a nuclear weapon represented a matter of primary strategic importance.
The problem no longer concerned only knowing the intentions of the adversary.
It was necessary to understand where the infrastructures were located, what technologies were available, which foreign companies and suppliers were involved, which scientists participated in the programs and how rapidly those capabilities could evolve.
Intelligence work was thus becoming increasingly complex.
Alongside traditional source recruitment and penetration of adversarial organizations, the acquisition of scientific documentation, analysis of industrial networks, control of technology transfers, and cooperation with other Western services were assuming growing importance.
By the late 1990s it had become clear that the center of gravity of Israeli concerns was progressively shifting eastward.
Iran was not the only target of Mossad, but it was becoming the dossier destined to condition an increasingly large part of its activities in the new century.
Toward a new era of intelligence
At the same time, the way intelligence was conducted was also changing.
Traditional clandestine operations would not disappear, but would begin to integrate increasingly with new technological capabilities.
Electronic surveillance, satellite communications, databases, technical intelligence and, subsequently, increasingly sophisticated IT tools would enormously expand the operational possibilities of the services.
Mossad was thus preparing to enter a different phase of its history.
A phase in which traditional espionage, clandestine operations, sabotage, international cooperation, technology and cyber intelligence would gradually begin to merge.
And precisely as Iran was becoming increasingly central to Israeli strategy, a man was about to arrive on the scene destined to imprint one of the most profound transformations in Mossad's recent history.
An officer grown up in operations, a convinced supporter of a more aggressive and action-oriented service, who would bring back to the center the ability to operate clandestinely far from Israeli borders.
His name was Meir Dagan.
To be continued ...
Part 2 - From the 2000s to the clandestine warfare of the 21st century - Available 25/09/2026
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