Mossad: Israel's Secretive Foreign Intelligence Agency and Its Global Operations

“Where there is no guidance, a nation falls, but in an abundance of counselors, there is safety.” It is a message first penned in the Torah, Proverbs 11:14, but within the last century, it has taken on an altogether different meaning. That verse is the motto of Mossad, Israel’s secretive foreign-intelligence agency, and much like Mossad itself, that motto is at the center of Israel’s long-term effort to secure its own survival. Mossad’s unique mission and situation, the shadowy history of the organization, and some of the major operations—successful and failed—that have defined its place in public understanding reveal an intelligence service unlike any other in the world.

From Haganah to Mossad: The Origins of Israeli Intelligence

Mossad was first established in the aftermath of the Second World War, shortly after the modern state of Israel held its first set of elections and was admitted to the United Nations. Mossad was a successor to the organization known as Haganah, a military commando force made up of Jewish Palestinians, which had defended Jewish settlements before and during World War II. After the war, Haganah had turned to terrorism—specifically, a campaign of bombings—in order to resist British attempts to limit Jewish immigration to Palestine.

But their success in doing so, as well as later effectiveness in direct confrontations against British and Palestinian forces, meant that when Israel became a state, Haganah already had a controlling influence in its national defense decisions. This situation led Haganah to be dissolved as a private organization and adopted into what would become Israel’s military, the Israel Defense Forces or IDF. Haganah’s intelligence arm evolved into Mossad and two other organizations, Aman and Shin Bet.

Key Takeaways

Mossad evolved from Haganah, a pre-state Jewish paramilitary organization, alongside Aman and Shin Bet when Israel formalized its intelligence apparatus after independence.
Director Isser Harel transformed Mossad from a wartime resistance network into a global intelligence operation over eleven years, establishing the CIA partnership and the Trident Network with Iran and Turkey.
Mossad’s assassination tally has reached into the multiple thousands since World War II, far exceeding any other Western intelligence agency, with the Kidon unit carrying out targeted killings.
The capture of Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires remains Mossad’s most celebrated operation, resulting in his conviction on 15 counts of crimes against humanity and execution by hanging.
The botched 1997 assassination attempt on Khaled Mashal in Jordan caused a hostage crisis and led to the release of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

Much like, for example, the American FBI handles matters of domestic intelligence while the CIA handles foreign intelligence, Mossad was established to fill a role of foreign intelligence-gathering and analysis, as well as covert operations. Aman would pick up responsibility for Israel’s military intelligence, while Shin Bet would handle security within Israel. The intelligence environment Mossad entered into was incredibly complex and fast-paced, with the United States and Europe pivoting into a cold-war posture against the Soviet Union and its allies, not to mention a rapidly shifting situation in the Middle East and Asia.

The persistent specter of any number of escaped Nazi war criminals, fleeing on ratlines toward Latin America, fascist Spain, and the United States, further complicated the situation. It would have been a difficult environment for any newly established intelligence agency to force its way into, but given that Mossad was setting up shop while the entire nation of Israel did the same, their job was even harder. Under Mossad’s first director, Reuven Shiloah, the organization largely fought bureaucratic battles for the first year of its existence.

It also suffered an early loss of face in the Middle East, when a clumsily organized spy ring in Baghdad was exposed while trying to deal with a series of bombings against Jewish targets in Iraq.

Isser Harel and Meir Amit: The Directors Who Shaped Mossad

Before long, Mossad’s second director would whip the organization into shape. His name was Isser Harel, and he had already been working for years at setting up and reinforcing Israel’s Shin Bet organization—which was responsible for domestic intelligence within Israeli borders. In his eleven-year directorship, Harel would take the Mossad from its roots as a wartime resistance network and re-shape it into a capable and extremely dangerous global intelligence operation.

Aided by brilliant intelligence minds like Malka Braverman, Harel oversaw the creation of a close relationship between Mossad and the CIA, and integrated Mossad into the CIA’s work against the Soviet Union. He also coordinated regional intelligence networks in the Middle East, including the Trident Network, which allied Mossad with pre-revolution Iran and Turkey. Harel was also a controversial figure within Israel, not least because of his tendencies to collect political dirt on various rivals, and he was forced out in 1963 and replaced with a veteran military-intelligence officer.

Whereas Harel had maintained a heavy focus on human intelligence, his successor, Meir Amit, shaped Mossad in very different ways. Amit’s technology-forward approach integrated the installation of computers, a broadening of Mossad’s links with foreign intelligence agencies, and a suite of intelligence-management techniques learned from the United States. Importantly, Amit maintained Harel’s emphasis on human intelligence as well, often making direct visits to foreign intelligence leaders.

And it was under his guidance that Mossad expanded its tactical arsenal for espionage, not just technologically, but by integrating many elements of spycraft that had previously been lacking.

Assassination Protocols and the Logic of Active Defense

Across all its various directors and administrators, Mossad has gained a reputation for its outsize role as a power player in regional and global affairs. Based on what is publicly known, the agency has a particularly unique character among global intelligence agencies, because in addition to the intel-gathering, cultivation of assets, and general covert activity that other organizations engage in, Mossad has proven uniquely interested in assassination. It would be difficult to pinpoint any international intelligence organization that is not known or accused of having engaged in assassination from time to time, but Mossad is especially prolific, especially against targets in the Middle East.

In many ways, this speaks to the unique demands of Mossad’s mission—unlike the intelligence agencies of, say, the US, the UK, Russia, or China, Israel is geographically isolated on a relatively small piece of territory, surrounded by nations that can very quickly turn from neutral neighbors to bitter enemies. Such a small territory to defend means that a prolonged war with a rival nation or insurgency could very quickly become unsustainable for Israel due to a lack of places to retreat to or escape enemy air power. The nation has adhered to principles of active defense for a long time.

This includes maintenance of a large and well-equipped standing military in the IDF, the specter of an un-acknowledged nuclear weapons program, and critically, an intelligence apparatus that is willing and able to make pre-emptive attacks against individuals who they believe might present a national security threat. Investigative journalist Ronen Bergman has described Mossad’s assassination protocols as a multi-step process to assess a target’s level of threat, and identify whether or not that threat profile warrants a targeted killing. Potential targets are identified either via Mossad’s internal intelligence-collection mechanisms, or via referral from parallel groups like Shin Bet and Aman, or via Israel’s spy networks around the world.

Once identified, it falls to Mossad agents to assess whether the target’s threat profile warrants assassination, whether assassination would have any actual, tangible benefit for Israel, and if so, how the assassination should be carried out. For all intents and purposes, Mossad has nearly unilateral ability to decide which of Israel’s perceived enemies rise to a level of assassination. The organization answers exclusively to the Israeli Prime Minister, and presents its intelligence findings to the PM directly.

Although Mossad and the Prime Minister receive input from the heads of Israel’s other intelligence bureaus, the decision on whether or not to carry out an assassination—and in fact, to engage in any foreign intelligence operation—lies singularly with the Prime Minister. Once the PM gives the green light, Mossad plans their assassination for weeks or even months before carrying it out. Their targets can be anyone from political leaders to scientists, academics to journalists, Arabs, Westerners, other Jews, and large numbers of Palestinians.

Watch on WarFronts

Watch the full video analysis on the WarFronts YouTube channel, presented by Simon Whistler.

Organizational Structure: From Caesaria to the Sayanim Network

In the Middle East, Mossad’s operational branch is referred to as Caesaria, which operates mainly in Arab nations using a sprawling network of spies, informants, and cooperating assets. Within this branch, there is a special unit devoted to assassinations and sabotage: Kidon, referring to the Hebrew word for “bayonet.” Much like other global intelligence agencies, Kidon is largely made up of Israeli military veterans, including experienced special operators.

Caesaria, and thus Kidon, parallel organizations like the CIA’s Special Activities Center, but Mossad’s tally of targeted assassination attempts has risen into multiple thousands—far more than any other Western nation has undertaken since the close of World War II. Taking a broader view, Mossad is structured across several departments: Collections, Political Action and Liaison, Research, and Technology. The Collections Department oversees most of Mossad’s covert operations and undercover missions, including most of its asset cultivation, and it makes up a plurality of Mossad’s overall manpower.

Around the world, the Collections Department oversees geographical regions and their teams of Mossad officers and agents. The Political Action and Liaison Department oversees collaboration with international intelligence partners, as well as maintaining open lines of communication with countries that don’t share formal ties with Israel. The Research Department procures and provides analysis on incoming intelligence across fifteen geographical areas, plus a subdivision to discuss weapons of mass destruction, and the Technology Department is responsible for all the gadgets, satellites, and other various spy equipment that Mossad requires in order to operate effectively.

The Special Operations Division, including Kidon and another sub-group known as Metsada, carries out assassination, sabotage, and paramilitary operations, while the LAP Department—the Lohamah Psichologit Department—oversees psychological warfare operations and propaganda. Equally important are Mossad’s external agencies and partner groups, which leverage deep ties with the Jewish community at home and abroad in order to maximize Mossad’s potential as an intelligence leader. For example, Libertad Ventures, a venture-capital group, was created by Mossad in 2017, and now openly advertises the chance for start-up organizations to submit their technology for potential use by the agency.

On the human side are the Sayanim, a sprawling network of unpaid Jewish civilians around the world who devote their personal support to Mossad out of loyalty to Israel, often without being Israeli citizens themselves. Their role is to provide logistical support to Mossad operatives whenever possible—for example, an individual Sayan who owns a grocery market or bodega might see to it that an undercover Mossad agent in a safe house receives consistent food supplies without having to go out in public. The Sayanim are multi-generational and widespread across the world, and though their role has been vastly overblown by a wide range of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, individual Sayan can be tremendously helpful to Mossad’s operations while easing budgetary strain.

International Partnerships and Recruitment from the IDF

Internationally, Mossad’s partners include the United States, the UK, and most of Europe, with a breakdown of friends and enemies that largely follows Israel’s broader geopolitical profile. But within the Middle East, Mossad often has deeper ties with other governments than the Israeli state itself. That is no accident—in a region where an overnight coup in one country can lead to a revolution in another, and then a war between a third and a fourth country, and a human rights emergency in a fifth all in the span of a week, Mossad has taken precautions to form robust connections even with adversarial governments, in order to keep options open for de-escalation of tensions and to avoid an all-out war that would involve Israel.

As for joining Mossad, these days, the answer is simpler than one might think—a person would simply visit the Mossad website and fill out an online application, a path that is likely to bring an applicant into roles involving technology, cyber-operations, or organizational administration. When understanding Mossad’s recruitment structure, though, it is important to understand the importance of the Israel Defense Forces, which requires that every Israeli citizen of Jewish, Druze, or Circassian descent serves for at least two years and eight months after they turn eighteen. Mandatory conscription makes the IDF a valuable feeder organization across much of Israeli society, a way to pick out the best and brightest in a wide range of fields, and it is no different for Mossad.

A successful Special Operations soldier might be recruited into Kidon in order to take part in assassination and sabotage operations, whereas an especially promising intelligence officer within the IDF might be recruited as a handler, or a soldier who learned to operate drones and satellites in the IDF might do the same for Mossad. Historically, the organization was far more personal in its recruitment, preferring to solicit referrals for new personnel by relying on its existing staff to refer friends, family, and other trusted associates. Occasionally, Mossad might have sent out vague ads in newspaper classifieds, or directly solicited Israelis who had earned a security clearance via the IDF.

Walk-ins at Israeli embassies also were not unheard of, although that option became far less popular after the advent of video cameras made a walk-in risky, especially in potentially hostile environments.

Training: Psychological Screening and High-Attrition Selection

Once a recruit gains acceptance to Mossad, they must be trained for their new role, and while much of Mossad’s training regimen is unknown to the public, what is known suggests a rigorous process that probably includes high failure rates. Upon establishing their candidacy, a recruit must weather a battery of tests and in-depth psychological analysis, including top-to-bottom questioning on every aspect of their personal lives. Recruits then enter into a pre-screening program that includes a range of high-stress exercises and simulations, in which they are intentionally kept in the dark about their success or failure, and deliberately stressed or made to feel insecure by instructors throughout the program.

Recruits who can cope with the fear and anxiety of intelligence work, demonstrate quick thinking and strong interpersonal skills, maintain integrity toward Mossad, and handle the solitary nature of Mossad’s agents are moved into a proper training program. Those who cannot are asked to head home. Very little is known about Mossad’s training program, and even less about the specifics of instruction on a given role within the agency.

But if the pre-screening process is designed to force failure and create high attrition rates, the actual training is probably even more grueling.

Famous Operations: From Adolf Eichmann to Targeted Killings

Of all of Mossad’s secret missions, none is as celebrated as the capture of Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi who had been one of the chief architects of the Holocaust alongside Reinhard Heydrich. After Eichmann had escaped from a detention camp and fled through the Nazis’ ratlines to Latin America, a group of Holocaust survivors and private Nazi hunters sought to locate him and bring him to justice, with the help of Mossad. Much like other Sayanim, these Nazi hunters were instrumental in facilitating Mossad’s operations, and once the Nazi hunters had found a lead that directed them to Buenos Aires, Argentina, a Mossad team under Malka Braverman took over.

After weeks of investigation and surveillance, and attempts to work with the German government toward extradition, Mossad eventually captured Eichmann themselves. He was first interrogated for nine days at a safe house in Argentina, with one of Mossad’s primary goals being to locate the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, and then sedated and brought back to Israel on a commercial airliner disguised as a sick passenger. Once Israel made it public, the operation rattled Argentina, the UN, the CIA, and other interested parties around the world, but it did not much matter.

Eichmann would ultimately be found guilty on 15 counts of crimes against humanity and other major violations, and was executed by hanging. But it is relatively rare for Mossad to want the world to know about one of their operations, and usually, the reality is far different. Take the Palestinian Fadi al-Batsh, who was a member of the nationalist military group Hamas.

In a 2018 killing that mirrors the assassination of many dozens of known Hamas members, al-Batsh was assassinated on the streets of Kuala Lumpur by two men on a motorcycle, who gunned him down and disappeared into the city. Israel categorically denied involvement with the killing, at the same time as allegations began to circulate in Israel that al-Batsh had been working to improve the accuracy of rockets that Hamas launches against Israeli targets. Experts have identified motorbike attacks as a hallmark of Mossad’s teams of assassins.

A particularly odd assassination attempt garnered headlines for very different reasons in 1997, when Mossad agents attempted to assassinate a Hamas representative, Khaled Mashal. Disguising themselves as Canadian tourists, Mossad agents injected a toxin into Mashal’s body via his ear while Mashal was in Jordan, causing a medical emergency. But those agents would quickly be apprehended by Jordanian authorities, and several others trapped in Israel’s embassy, causing a hostage crisis.

Eventually, the Jordanian government was able to convince Israel to send a doctor and administer an antidote to Mashal, in exchange for the Mossad agents’ freedom. The fallout from the incident would lead to a number of hits against Mossad’s and Israel’s standing, including the release of Hamas’ founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. A group of at least 26 Mossad agents were implicated in the 2010 killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a military commander within Hamas, who was suffocated to death in a hotel room in Dubai.

Though there has never been direct evidence to link Mossad to the incident, it is believed that al-Mabhouh was tortured and interrogated by the team of agents prior to his death, and information about the suspected agents’ international passports has since been released. A bungled 1954 operation offers a look back on Mossad’s early tactics, in an attempt to stop an Israeli military officer, Alexander Israel, from selling state secrets to Egypt. Using a female Mossad agent in a so-called honey trap operation, Major Israel was lured into a trap and kidnapped, but eventually overdosed on a plane ride back to his home country after he was given repeated doses of sedatives to try and keep him controlled on the flight.

The incident was kept hidden for decades after the fact.

Notable Agents: Wolfgang Lotz and Eli Cohen

A small number of individual Mossad agents have further distinguished themselves personally, in a long series of exceptionally brave and crafty operations in service to Israel. Wolfgang Lotz, a West German working for Mossad, was able to infiltrate Egypt and collect highly detailed information on missile sites, military installations, and prominent German rocket scientists working for the government. Eli Cohen would infiltrate the highest levels of the Syrian government during the 1960s, and was almost made Minister of Defense in Syria, while working on Mossad’s behalf, providing massive amounts of intelligence before his execution in 1965.

Of course, there are no doubt hundreds, if not thousands of other individual agents who have made similarly major contributions, but Lotz and Cohen are among only a small handful whose identities have become known. In all this, it is important to include the caveat that these are only the operations that are publicly known, and except for a few rare exceptions like the Eichmann trial, the world typically only finds out about these sorts of intelligence operations when they go wrong. It is impossible to confirm, but it stands to reason that Mossad’s track record is far longer than anything accessible in the public record, and that many of their greatest successes are completely unknown.

It is possible that they will never be known—and that is just how Mossad prefers it.

Mossad in the Digital Age and Israel’s Geopolitical Crossroads

Rounding into the 2020s, Mossad has begun to establish a much more active public profile than in years past. The organization still very much lives and works in the shadows—and probably would rather not be emerging into the public eye at all—but it is a difficult reality of the digital age that if Mossad wants to keep up its recruitment numbers and get ahead of a constant, international flow of information about its missions, then it will need to share itself more than it has typically done. Its online application portal and its modern website are already stark contrasts with its intentionally murky history, and as time goes on, it is likely that Mossad will begin shifting more into the public eye while shielding its operations, akin to the American CIA.

To that end, Mossad recently allowed senior agents to take part in a documentary released in 2018, although after the film’s release, many of its subjects took umbrage with what they perceived as its potential to damage Mossad’s work. Mossad’s operatives are still hard at work hunting down and eliminating Israel’s enemies—allegedly. In October of 2022, several news organizations alleged that Mossad had attempted to kidnap two Palestinian computer scientists, successfully abducting one but failing to prevent the other from escaping.

The one who was captured is believed to have been beaten and interrogated, but was freed by Malaysian authorities, who later claimed to have uncovered a Mossad cell spying on civilian targets within the country. And in Turkey, a number of suspected Mossad agents were identified, accused of having been following and tracking Palestinians on Turkish soil. Perhaps to combat this difficult news, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken to releasing bits and pieces of information on the organization’s successes, including descriptions of the massive amounts of intelligence that it has uncovered on the Iranian nuclear program.

Looking to the future, Mossad stands alongside the rest of Israel at a fairly difficult crossroads, with its own organizational future contingent on the political future that Israel’s leaders will choose for it. Prime Minister Netanyahu and a far-right coalition within the Israeli government appear to be taking steps to significantly change Israel’s power structure, and whatever system it decides upon is likely to have at least some impact on how Mossad does its work. So, too, does a potential strengthening of ties with Saudi Arabia, a potential increase in tensions with Iran over its nuclear program, and the always-fractious environment of the Middle East.

As for what Mossad does about all that, it simply cannot be said—and if Mossad has its way, the world will probably never know. The one thing that is certain is that as long as Israel continues to weather the turbulence of its geopolitical environment, Mossad will endure with it. So long as Mossad exists, its agents will remain on the front lines of intelligence work across the world, doing everything within their power to ensure that the Israeli state perseveres for decades and centuries to come.

Presented by

Simon Whistler

Simon Whistler is one of YouTube's most prolific educational creators. WarFronts is his deep dive into military history and conflict analysis.

Frequently Asked Questions

How did Mossad originate from Haganah?

Haganah was a Jewish Palestinian paramilitary force that defended settlements before and during World War II and later ran a bombing campaign against British restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine. When Israel became a state, Haganah was dissolved into the Israel Defense Forces and its intelligence arm evolved into three organizations: Mossad for foreign intelligence, Shin Bet for domestic security, and Aman for military intelligence.

How does Mossad’s assassination process work?

Investigative journalist Ronen Bergman describes it as a multi-step protocol in which potential targets are identified through internal collection, referrals from Shin Bet and Aman, or spy networks abroad. Mossad then assesses whether the threat level and tangible benefit to Israel warrants a killing. The final decision rests solely with the Israeli Prime Minister, after which Mossad plans the operation for weeks or months. The agency’s Kidon unit within the Caesaria branch carries out the actual killings.

What happened during the capture of Adolf Eichmann?

After Holocaust survivors and private Nazi hunters traced Eichmann to Buenos Aires, a Mossad team under Malka Braverman conducted weeks of surveillance and failed extradition attempts before seizing him. He was interrogated for nine days at a safe house—in part to locate Josef Mengele—then sedated and flown to Israel disguised as a sick passenger. He was convicted on 15 counts of crimes against humanity and executed by hanging.

What was the Sayanim network?

The Sayanim are a sprawling, multi-generational network of unpaid Jewish civilians around the world who provide logistical support to Mossad out of loyalty to Israel, often without being Israeli citizens. An individual Sayan might supply food to an undercover agent in a safe house or provide other discreet assistance to ease budgetary strain and operational exposure. The article notes their role has been vastly overblown by antisemitic conspiracy theories, but they can be genuinely helpful to specific operations.

What went wrong in the 1997 Khaled Mashal assassination attempt?

Mossad agents disguised as Canadian tourists injected a toxin into Hamas representative Khaled Mashal’s ear while he was in Jordan, causing a medical emergency. Jordanian authorities quickly apprehended the agents and others became trapped in Israel’s embassy, triggering a hostage crisis. Jordan convinced Israel to send a doctor and administer an antidote in exchange for the agents’ freedom, and the fallout included the release of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.