TEL AVIV – Isaac Shoshan, an Israeli secret operative in Syria who pretended to be an Arab early in his career and participated in bombings and an assassination attempt, before making major contributions to the country’s espionage methods, is on December 28 died in Tel Aviv. He was 96.
His daughter Eti confirmed the death at Ichilov Hospital. He had a stroke, she said.
In a tribute on Twitter, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who once served in an Israeli intelligence unit that killed Mr. Shoshan helped get pregnant, said Mr. Shoshan “repeatedly risked his life” on behalf of Israel.
“Generations of warriors have learned their trades at his feet,” he added, “me too.”
Mr. Shoshan was born in 1924 as Zaki Shasho in Aleppo, Syria, from an Arabic-speaking Jewish family. He studied at a French-language school, taught Hebrew at Orthodox Jewish schools, and belonged to the Zionist Hebrew Scouts as a youth. At 18, motivated by his Zionism, he traveled to the then British government of Palestine and was recruited within two years by the Palmach, the Jewish underground fighting force.
During his training, he was posted to a secret unit known as the Arab Peloton. It was composed of Jews who could pass as Arabs, and was charged with gathering intelligence and carrying out sabotage and deliberate killings.
The unit was established in anticipation of “a civil war in Palestine between the Jews and the Arabs,” said Yoav Gelber, a professor and historian of the period.
The members of the unit, mostly immigrants from Arab countries, were trained in intelligence gathering and secret communications – for example, Morse code – as well as in commando tactics and the use of explosives. They also studied Islam and the Arab customs intensively so that they could live as Arabs without arousing suspicion.
Mr. Shoshan began participating in intelligence-gathering operations after the United Nations voted in 1947 to divide Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states, causing clashes that would turn into war.
But in February 1948, he was asked to use another aspect of his training: to help assassinate a Palestinian leader, Sheikh Nimr al-Khatib, who was told by Lebanon that he was on his way to Palestine with weapons.
Armed men had to shoot at the sheikh’s car, and Mr. “Shoshan, as an apparent Arab bystander, was instructed to ‘run back and apparently help, but to make sure the sheikh was dead, and if not, to finish the job with my gun down,'” he said in an interview in 2002.
The sheikh was indeed shot in his car – the assassins “sprayed it with machine guns with fire,” said Mr. Shoshan said – but it survived after British soldiers prevented Shoshan from reaching it. Only wounded did the sheikh leave Palestine and cease to play an active role in the war.
Shortly afterwards, Mr. Shoshan and another member of the Arab platoon were sent to a garage in Haifa, Israel, where intelligence indicated that a car bomb had been detonated.
“The owners never suspected us,” he said. Shoshan said. “Of course they did not want to enter our car, but agreed to allow us a moment to use the bathroom.”
It was long enough to activate a timely fuse on an explosive device and flee. Minutes later, a huge explosion shook the entire area and demolished the garage and several adjoining buildings, killing at least five people and injuring many more.
In 1948, after British troops withdrew from Palestine and Israel declared independence, Arab Platonic agents were sent to neighboring Arab countries with the dual purpose of gathering information and countering threatening threats.
“Although we were sent to gather information, we also saw ourselves as soldiers, and we looked for opportunities to act,” Shoshan said.
He and his colleagues were sent to Beirut and bought a kiosk and an Oldsmobile which they used as a taxi to provide cover for their activities.
On one occasion, the unit was ordered to plant a bomb in a luxury yacht of a wealthy Lebanese. (They were told that Adolf Hitler used it during World War II.) Intelligence suggested that the vessel be converted into a weapon for use against the Jews. The blast ensured that the yacht did not sink, but damaged that it could not be used for military operations.
The main operation of the team – a mission to assassinate Lebanese Prime Minister Riad al-Suhl – was to take place in December 1948. Mr. Shoshan and the others devised a plan to assassinate the prime minister while pursuing his movements. But the operation was carried out at the last minute by senior Israeli leaders, much to the disappointment of Mr. Shoshan, adjourned.
In his two years in Beirut, Mr. Shoshan relatives of those killed in the bombing in Haifa. They spoke freely to him and thought he was a Palestinian.
“Before, I never thought about the people who were killed there,” he said. Shoshan recalls in the book ‘Men of Secrets, Men of Mystery’ (1990), which he co-authored with Rafi Sutton, a former former intelligence colleague. “And there in Beirut, an old Arab is sitting next to me, crying over his two sons who died in the explosion I took part in.”
The meeting was one of the events that brought about a change in the thinking of Mr. Shoshan caused, his son Yaakov later said. “Dad always knew that it would only lead to more wars if we only used force, and he always supported the solution of ‘two states for two people’. ‘
The capture and execution of some Arab Platoon members eventually led to Israel abandoning the use of Jewish spies assimilating with Arabs. Mr. Shoshan turned to recruiting and managing Arab agents, a role that prompted him to turn it into spin-offs.
“It seems that he is also blessed with a talent for this job,” said Mr. Sutton, the co-author, said in an interview. ‘Agents are a problematic issue, and you need to know when they’re lying to you or telling the truth, and how not to let them blackmail you and take control of your relationship without being willing to deal with you work together. ”
Shoshan later insisted on the resumption of the assimilation program, which led to the establishment of Sayeret Matkal, a military espionage unit. The unit was set up to gather information in the heart of hostile lands, in part by using fighters trained to use an Arab cover. Among its members were a young Benjamin Netanyahu, now the prime minister, and his predecessor, Mr. Barak, who ordered it.
Mr. Shoshan is responsible for training the members who pretended to be Arabs.
He played a role in building the cover story for Eli Cohen, the Israeli spy who invaded the top circles of the Syrian regime in the 1960s, but was eventually exposed and executed. (Mr. Cohen’s story was recently dramatized in the Netflix series ‘The Spy’, starring Sacha Baron Cohen.)
Me. Shoshan retired in 1982, but was occasionally mobilized by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad to train agents and sometimes take part in operations himself.
When he hides, he takes the part of an Arab old man who may be pretending to need help – to enter a building, for example, to make an urgent call, or to make contact with a target of recruitment. According to an older man, it is less likely to arouse suspicion.