When the Israeli Health Minister became infected with coronavirus earlier this month, one of the senior dignitaries who was with him in the same room and was forced to be quarantined stood out from the rest: he was nothing more, nothing less, than the director of Mossad, the famous Israeli secret agency, it was reported in today’s edition of The New York Times. Immediately, it was inevitable for the Israelis to wonder what Yossi Cohen, a respectable figure in the country, was doing in the same room with the Health Minister Yaakov Litzman, if Mossad is not in the health business?
After all, the powerful Israeli secret agency has been deeply involved in the fight against the new coronavirus, the enemy of the moment. Its spies and well-trained agents have been dedicated in using the agency’s international network to acquire the medical equipment and technology Israel needs to fight the pandemic, says the american newspaper, citing sources linked to the organization.
Mossad has determined that the enemy Iran – struggling with its own coronavirus crisis – does not immediately pose a threat to national security. For this reason, the agency was able to dive deeply into the emergency response to the needs of the country’s health sector. To date, Israel is not among the countries in the world with the most cases of Covid-19. On the contrary: it has 11,000 confirmed cases and 103 deaths.
In February, Mossad’s contribution to quell the epidemic began. Israel’s largest hospital, the Sheba Medical Center, found it needed more fans and other equipment. Then Professor Yitshak Kreiss, director general of the hospital, met with Mossad chief Yossi Cohen at a private meeting that involved a mutual friend, something normal in a small country where elites move in the same social circles. Kreiss told the Mossad leader what the hospital’s most urgent needs were, to which the Ministry of Health added another, more extensive list. Mossad then activated its international network to find the requested equipment. In early March, a control and command center was set up in Sheba, with the Mossad leader at the head. The center includes representatives from the secret, one division of the Ministry of Defense and the highly secretive unit 81, the Mossad military wing that deals with the development of high-intelligence equipment.
