A hacker group calling itself "Open Hands" continued to publish personal data of the head of the Israeli Foreign Intelligence Service (Mossad), David Barnea, who has headed the Mossad since June 1, 2021.

And the newspaper "Yediot Aharonot" said that the hackers - suspected of being Iranian - published on their channel on the Telegram application, a tax form for the head of the Mossad dating back to 2020 and containing information about his salary, savings and pension.

What is the story of the Mossad?

Birth and founding

1937: When it was established, the Mossad worked as an illegal immigration organization aimed at deporting Jews to Palestine. The origin of the word Mossad goes back to the Hebrew phrase “Mossad for Aliyah Bit,” which means the illegal immigration organization, which was considered one of the institutions of the Israeli intelligence service and the traditional apparatus of the central office for intelligence and security.

The Mossad began its first activities through a group of no more than 40 officers, administrators and field agents in the information department of one of the intelligence services of the Haganah gangs.

December 13, 1949: "Hamosad LeModi'in to Inspect Meuhdim," the Hebrew name for the Central Institution for Intelligence and Special Missions in Israel, was established as a body to coordinate between the intelligence and security services in Israel.

- February 8, 1951: The commission turned into an independent authority for intelligence, and its scope of work is outside the borders of Israel.

March 1951: The Mossad is reorganized to become Israel's foreign arm and is officially affiliated with the Prime Minister's Office.

The Mossad, which is based at the Jalilot junction north of Tel Aviv, is one of the three main intelligence agencies in Israel, in addition to: the Internal Security Agency (Shin Bet) and the Military Intelligence Division (Imam).

- The activity of this agency is focused on three central axes: First: collecting information in the political, social, military and security fields around the world.

Second: The implementation of "special operations" outside Israel's borders, and in this context, the Mossad committed a very large number of assassinations.

Third: Conducting research and evaluations of all materials and data that are being collected to draw conclusions and present recommendations to the official political and security authorities in Israel

- The Mossad's emblem is the menorah, on which it is written: "Without tricks, the people will fall, and salvation is through counsel," which means that all means are legitimate to maintain Israel's security.


Tasks and goals

The Mossad's goals are summarized in collecting intelligence information and carrying out secret security and diplomatic operations outside the borders of the state, in addition to targeting and thwarting the enemy's civilian and military targets inside and outside its territory, such as assassinations.

Managing espionage networks in all foreign countries, planting agents and recruiting delegates in all countries.

Managing the Public Information Branch, which monitors the various sources of information that are contained in bulletins, newspapers, and academic and strategic studies around the world.

- An assessment of the political and economic situation of the Arab countries, accompanied by proposals and recommendations on the steps to be taken in light of the confidential information available.

Membership and Recruitment

- According to studies of the Al-Majd website, which specializes in security issues, the Mossad has several means to recruit its agents and workers, explaining that new candidates from the trainers learn at the Mossad school how to recruit agents in the intelligence services.

He added that from a psychological point of view, the weaknesses of the person to be recruited are taken into account, and the personality and temperament traits of this person are well studied before approaching him, pointing to three main methods used by the Mossad for recruitment, which are: sex, money and passion.

- As for the apparatus, it is clear that the Mossad chooses its officers, department directors, station officials, and the important elements in its structure from the first generation of Israelis, especially members and officers of the armed forces and the outstanding students from schools, institutes and universities.

He added that after the test, the client will be trained for a full year on the initial principles of the nature of the informant's work, pointing out that groups of scientists, experts, politicians, university professors, researchers, and partisans have been targeted in sensitive sites.

structuring

The Mossad has three divisions:

Information Department: It collects, extrapolates, analyzes and draws conclusions about it.

Operations Department: It sets operations plans for sabotage, kidnapping and killing within the framework of a general plan for the state.

Psychological Warfare Section: It supervises the plans and implementation of psychological warfare operations, using the efforts of the previous two sections by spreading the Zionist idea.

- A school for training delegates and agents has been attached to the Mossad, whose main center is Haifa, in which training is conducted on the rules of covert work and espionage work.

The Mossad is divided into divisions, which are units and divisions, and most units and divisions are concentrated in the executive work, and they are:

1- TEFL: responsible for intelligence and diplomatic relations.

2- Sumit: Responsible for operating the information collection officers and customer network around the world.

3- Caesarea: special operations, liquidations, assassinations, and combat units.

4- Kidoun: It has about forty members who speak many languages, and they specialize in methods of liquidation and the assassination of enemies.

5- Nabi’ot: Responsible for obtaining intelligence information by electronic means.

There are three other non-executive divisions:

1- Intelligence: It includes the Research Department, and its mission is to assess the political situation and determine the long-term goals of the Mossad.

2- Tsfririm: Its mission is to protect and defend the Jews in the world.

3- Technology: a selected unit of technology that works in conjunction with the executive divisions of the Mossad.

September 2015: According to the statement of the head of the apparatus, Tamir Bardo (at the time) on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the establishment of the apparatus, 40% of Mossad employees are women, and 24% of them occupy high positions.

He added that 23% of the agency's workers are between 22 and 32 years old, and said that the Mossad, despite its reliance on advanced technology during its activities, still needs a human resource.

1996: The first time that the name of the Mossad chief was officially announced by the Israeli government during his tenure in office, and it was at that time that he was Danny Yatum.

November 2021: After organizational changes made by the new head of the service, David Barnea, 3 senior officials from the Mossad announced their resignations.

The three who resigned are: the head of the technology department, the head of the counter-terrorism department, and the head of the Mafraq department, which is the central department in the agency, which is responsible for operating customers.

Finance

- The Mossad’s budget is secret, and reports directly to the Prime Minister’s Office, under the item “a reserve budget in the Prime Minister’s Office.” The budget is not limited to the agency’s regular expenses, but rather to the agency’s various branches of real estate, companies, and commercial interests around the world.

2014: Press reports stated that the intelligence service’s budget recorded in the four years preceding that year a sharp increase, reaching 36% from the budget that was in 2009.

According to the data, the Shin Bet and Mossad budgets amounted to more than 1.86 billion dollars in 2013, down from 1.68 billion dollars in 2012, an increase of 10%.


Notable Operations

1960 Kidnapping of Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Argentina.

1966: The Mossad contributed to the hijacking of the Russian MiG-21 plane from Iraq in order to learn its capabilities and secrets in order to achieve Israeli air superiority in the 1967 war.

Execution of the Palestinians responsible for the killing of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972.

July 1972: Israel assassinated the Palestinian writer and journalist Ghassan Kanafani, by blowing up his car in Beirut with an explosive device.

The assassination of 12 Palestinian members of the Black September organization who carried out the Munich operation in 1972.

1979: A warehouse containing nuclear missiles was detonated in a French port in an operation called the "Sphinx".

March 1979: Mossad assassinated the leader of the Popular Front, Wadih Haddad, in an East German hotel, by putting an amount of poison in one of his favorite chocolate bars.

1981: The Mossad helped enable the Israeli army to bomb the nuclear reactor built by the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein with the help of France.

- The assassination of the second man in the Fatah movement, Khalil al-Wazir, in 1988 in Tunisia.

February 1992: The car of Hezbollah Secretary-General Abbas al-Moussawi was bombed with missiles in the town of Tafahta (southern Lebanon), which led to the killing of him, his wife and son.

October 1995: The Mossad sent Kidon, its best unit specialized in assassination, as it described the former Secretary General of the Jihad Movement, Fathi al-Shaqaqi, with gunshot wounds to the head.

January 1996: Israel assassinated Yahya Ayyash, the engineer of the Qassam Brigades (the military wing of Hamas) by remotely detonating a cell phone he was using in a house in northern Gaza.

The Mossad assassinated dozens of faction leaders and intifada activists, among the most prominent political figures who were assassinated in this era: Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, his successor in Gaza Abdel Aziz Rantisi, Secretary-General of the Popular Front Abu Ali Mustafa, and leaders in Hamas: Ismail Abu Shanab Ibrahim Al-Maqadma, Jamal Mansour, and Jamal Selim.

The Mossad also assassinated dozens of military leaders, most notably the leaders of the Al-Qassam and Al-Aqsa Brigades: Salah Shehadeh, Adnan Al-Ghoul, Mahmoud Abu Al-Hinoud, Raed Al-Karmi, and Jihad Al-Amarin.

January 2010: Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the leader of the al-Qassam Brigades, was assassinated by the Mossad in a hotel in Dubai.

During the wars on Gaza in 2008, 2012, and 2014, Israeli planes assassinated Hamas leaders: Saeed Siam and Nizar Rayan, along with the military leaders: Ahmed al-Jabari, Raed al-Attar, and Muhammad Abu Shammala.

In Bulgaria, Mossad assassinated former Popular Front operative Omar Al-Nay, who was found dead in a car on February 26, 2016.

December 2016: The Mossad assassinated the Tunisian engineer, Mohamed Zouari, in front of his house in the city of Sfax, by firing bullets from the Mossad.

Later, it was announced that Al-Zawari belonged to the Al-Qassam Brigades and was overseeing the project to manufacture drones.

April 21, 2018: Malaysia was not spared from the Mossad, as Fadi al-Batsh, an electrical engineer and academic close to Hamas, was assassinated on its soil.

2018: The theft of the archives of the Iranian nuclear program.

On the other hand, the Mossad had failed attempts, including the attempt to assassinate Khaled Meshaal in Amman (Jordan) in 1997, and a number of its agents were arrested in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, some of whom were executed and some of whom were released as part of deals.

- Among his agents who were identified and arrested: Ahmad Khamis Bayoumi (born in Lebanon), Amina Daoud Al-Mufti (born in Amman), Ibrahim Sinai (born in Lebanon), Ibrahim Said Shaheen (born in Egypt), Eli Cohen (born in Egypt), and Baruch Zaki Mizrahi ( Born in Egypt), and Shula Cohen (born in Argentina).

machine heads

Since its establishment, the name of the Mossad chief has been a secret that the law does not allow to be revealed, until Danny Yatum was appointed head of this agency in 1996.

Reuven Shiloah, the first to head the Mossad (1949-1952).

Issar Harel (1953-1963), who made a huge and very important quantum leap in this intelligence apparatus:

Meir Amit (1963-1968).

Zvi Zamir (1968 - 1974).

- Yitzhak Hofi (1974 - 1982).

Nahum Admoni (1982-1989).

Shabtai Shavit (1989-1996).

Danny Yatom (1996-1998).

Ephraim Halevy (1998-2002).

Meir Dagan (2002 - 2010).

Tamir Bardo (2010 - 2016).

David Barnea (2016-2021).

David Barnea (2021 - present).