Abstract / Introduction
In current debates about Israel’s military and intelligence conduct, accusations of covert operations, sabotage, or deceptive maneuvers are common. State defenders usually dismiss them as political propaganda or “conspiracy theories.” However, historical documentation from Israeli intelligence services and rigorous academic research shows that these practices did occur. In at least one episode, the evidence was so compelling that the State itself was forced to publicly acknowledge it after decades of denial.
This article analyzes in detail Operation Susannah, also known as the Lavon Affair, a false flag operation carried out in Egypt in 1954. It examines its context, planning, concrete execution (including the bombings that were actually carried out) and the operational collapse that forced official recognition in 2005. It also reviews other episodes with strong historical evidence of Israeli covert actions, such as the 1950-1951 Baghdad bombings and proxy false flag operations in Lebanon in the 1980s, where there is documented evidence even without full official admission. Finally, it connects this recurring pattern of initial denial and forced admission to contemporary accusations of genocide in Gaza, supported by reports updated to June 2026 from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry. Official denial does not prove non-existence when the accumulated evidence becomes overwhelming.
2. Operation Susannah: Context, Planning and Execution
2.1 What was Operation Susannah?
Operation Susannah was a covert false flag operation ordered by Israeli military intelligence (Unit 131 of Aman) in Egypt during the summer of 1954. Its strategic objective was to create the appearance of internal instability in Egypt in order to sabotage relations between Cairo and the West, especially with Britain and the United States. At that time, Egypt was negotiating the British withdrawal from the Suez Canal and seeking to improve ties with Washington. Israel intended to blame the attacks on groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood or Egyptian communists, generating distrust and pressuring Britain to maintain its military presence in the Canal zone (Morris, 2001; Weiss, 2013).
The operation was designed as a low-profile sabotage action. It did not seek to cause mass casualties, but to generate a climate of insecurity that would weaken Nasser’s position and shift the regional balance in Israel’s favor.
2.2 Planning and method of execution
Israeli intelligence recruited a network of local young Egyptian Jews, many of them idealistic Zionists who had already received prior training. These agents received detailed instructions to place low-power incendiary devices.
The devices consisted of bags containing corrosive acid placed over nitroglycerin or other flammable material. They were inserted inside books on library shelves or left in post offices and cinemas. The acid was designed to slowly corrode the bag and trigger the explosion several hours after the premises closed, when they would be empty. In this way, material damage was minimized and fatalities were avoided (Weiss, 2013; Segev, 2019).
The plan contemplated a series of attacks on civilian targets linked to Western interests in Cairo and Alexandria: American libraries, British theaters, post offices and cinemas. The idea was that the attacks would appear to be the work of internal Egyptian opponents.
2.3 The actual execution and failure
The operation was carried out partially but concretely between early and mid-July 1954. The first successful attack occurred on July 2, when agents placed and activated a bomb in a post office in Alexandria. Days later, on July 14, devices were detonated at the United States Information Agency libraries in both Alexandria and Cairo, as well as at a British-owned theater. These devices worked as planned: they exploded outside business hours, caused limited material damage (mainly controlled fires) and produced no injuries or deaths (Weiss, 2013).
The plan included further escalation. Additional attacks were prepared against several Western-owned cinemas in Cairo and Alexandria, the railway terminal and the central post office in Cairo. However, the operation was not completed in its entirety. The collapse occurred when one of the agents, Philip Nathanson, was carrying a device in his pocket while heading to plant a bomb in a cinema in Alexandria around July 23. The device activated prematurely, igniting and injuring the agent, who was arrested on the spot. This incident allowed Egyptian authorities to quickly dismantle the entire network: multiple arrests took place in the following days (Segev, 2019; Weiss, 2013).
In short, the operation was carried out in its initial phase: several bombs were placed and detonated successfully at civilian targets linked to Western interests. The failure did not lie in the non-existence of the action, but in the operational error that allowed the cell to be captured before completing the full plan of attacks.
3. The Failure and Fate of the Agents
After the discovery of the operation, Egyptian authorities arrested the members of the network. Two of them, Moshe Marzouk and Shmuel Azar, were executed by hanging following a public trial that ran from December 1954 to January 1955, while others received long prison sentences. At that time, Israel denied any link to the detainees, abandoning them without diplomatic support or official recognition (Shlaim, 2000).
For decades, the executed and imprisoned agents were virtually erased from Israel’s official narrative. The State not only refrained from acknowledging the operation but allowed those responsible to bear all the legal and personal consequences of an action ordered from Tel Aviv. Only in 2005, under accumulated historical pressure, did Israel posthumously rehabilitate the agents and publicly honor the survivors in official ceremonies, implicitly acknowledging the operation (Segev, 2019). This recognition was forced: it did not arise from a voluntary decision for transparency, but from the sustained impossibility of maintaining denial in the face of accumulated testimonies, documents and internal political pressure.
4. Cover-up and Internal Political Crisis
The discovery of Operation Susannah provoked one of the most severe political crises in early Israeli history. The controversy revolved around political responsibility for the operation, particularly between the then Defense Minister Pinhas Lavon and central figures of the political and military establishment, including David Ben-Gurion.
For years, the government offered contradictory versions, denying the operation or attributing it to unauthorized decisions. Internal commissions, incomplete investigations and power struggles defined the so-called Lavon Affair, leaving lasting marks on Israeli politics and evidencing an institutional culture of cover-up regarding intelligence operations (Morris, 2001; Shlaim, 2000).
5. The Inevitable Admission
Unlike other controversial episodes, Operation Susannah reached a point where the accumulation of evidence, internal testimonies and political repercussions made official denial unsustainable. Finally, Israel admitted the operation, although without fully assuming the political or ethical responsibility of the time.
The confession was neither immediate nor fully transparent, but gradual and partial, forced by incontrovertible evidence. The official acknowledgment —which included the rehabilitation of the agents— makes Operation Susannah a singular case: the only false flag operation that Israel was forced to admit publicly (Segev, 2019). This precedent is crucial for historical analysis, demonstrating that official denial does not equate to nonexistence and that only exceptional circumstances have forced Israel to publicly recognize such operations.
6. Other Episodes with Strong Historical Evidence of Covert Actions Without Full Official Acknowledgment
Although Operation Susannah stands out for the forced official recognition, there is a documented pattern of Israeli covert operations in which the historical evidence is robust, even when there has not been a complete official admission.
6.1. Attacks on Jews in Baghdad (1950–1951)
Between 1950 and 1951, multiple bomb attacks targeted synagogues, cafés, and places frequented by Jews in Baghdad, in the context of the mass emigration of the Iraqi Jewish community to Israel. Historian Avi Shlaim, based on an Iraqi police report from the time and the testimony of a former Zionist underground operative, has concluded with “incontrovertible” evidence that the Iraqi Zionist underground, with Israeli involvement (including an Israeli intelligence handler), was responsible for at least three of the five main attacks. These attacks created a climate of fear that accelerated the exodus, favoring the strategic interests of the young Israeli State (Shlaim, 2023; Shiblak, 1986; Shenhav, 2002). Although Israel officially denies any involvement, the documentary and testimonial evidence accumulated by historians such as Shlaim significantly strengthens the thesis of Zionist participation.
6.2. Covert Operations and Proxy False Flag Actions in Lebanon (1970s–1980s)
During the 1970s and 1980s, Israel carried out numerous covert operations in Lebanon, including sabotage, targeted attacks, and actions aimed at destabilizing domestic politics. A particularly well-documented case is that of the Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners (FLLF), a fictitious organization created and run by Israel between 1979 and 1983 on the orders of Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan and supervised by figures such as Meir Dagan and Avigdor Ben-Gal. The FLLF claimed responsibility for dozens of car bombings (at least 36 confirmed in subsequent investigations) against Palestinian and Syrian targets in Beirut and other areas, with the explicit aim of generating chaos and a sense of insecurity without leaving an “Israeli fingerprint.” According to Ronen Bergman’s exhaustive work based on interviews with more than a thousand Israeli intelligence sources (including former Mossad directors), the FLLF was a proxy false flag operation orchestrated by Israel that caused hundreds of deaths. Although Israel never issued a full official recognition, subsequent investigations have exposed its real authorship (Bergman, 2018).
Other operations in Lebanon (including sabotage prior to the 1982 invasion) followed similar patterns of initial denial followed by fragmentary revelations through agent testimonies or declassified documents.
6.3. The Attack on USS Liberty (1967)
On June 8, 1967, during the Six-Day War, Israeli forces attacked the US intelligence ship USS Liberty, causing 34 deaths and dozens of injuries. Although official investigations by the United States and Israel determined it was a case of mistaken identity, survivors, analysts, and independent studies have revealed significant contradictions in the official reports and subsequent political-diplomatic cover-ups (Bamford, 2001). Crew testimonies and technical evidence suggest the attack was deliberate. Although there is no official Israeli recognition of intentionality, the persistent discrepancies and statements by senior US officials (including the NSA director at the time) keep the debate alive and evidence the pattern of denial and cover-up.
7. Conclusion
Operation Susannah stands out not only as a false flag operation but as a historical exception: the only case in which Israel was forced to publicly admit a covert act designed to deceive third parties through sabotage. The admission was neither voluntary nor immediate but resulted from operational failure, executions, political crisis, and accumulation of evidence that made denial impossible (Segev, 2019; Shlaim, 2000). Therefore, Susannah becomes a precedent that refutes the notion that all accusations of state deception against Israel are inherently implausible.
From a historical perspective, the case reveals a recurring pattern: absolute initial denial, institutional cover-up, delegitimization of accusations, and, in exceptional situations, partial or delayed admission. This pattern has been documented by both Israeli and foreign historians concerning military and intelligence operations since the creation of the State (Morris, 2001; Shlaim, 2000; Bergman, 2018).
This pattern is not merely historical. Until June 2026, major international human rights organizations—including Israeli ones—have explicitly accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, in accordance with the definition of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Amnesty International issued its main report in December 2024 concluding that Israel is committing and continues to commit genocide; in November 2025 it documented the continuation of the genocide after the October 2025 ceasefire; and in March 2026 it published additional analyses on the impact on women and girls, reaffirming the commission of genocidal acts. Human Rights Watch, in its World Report 2026 and previous 2025 reports, has described acts of genocide, crimes against humanity (including extermination through deprivation of water and starvation as a weapon of war) and ethnic cleansing in Gaza during 2025 and continuing in 2026. The UN Independent Commission of Inquiry (September 2025) concluded that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. Israeli organizations such as B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel have also issued similar conclusions in 2025.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, as of mid-June 2026 the number of recovered Palestinian bodies exceeded 73,000 (with more than 1,000 killed by Israeli fire since the October 2025 ceasefire alone). Independent investigations and forensic analyses corroborate systematic bombings in residential areas, especially at night, systematic destruction of homes and civilian infrastructure, and high numbers of civilian casualties. Thousands more are estimated to remain under the rubble.
Operation Susannah should not be seen as an isolated incident but as a historical warning: it demonstrates that Israel has resorted to covert operations, systematically denied them, and only acknowledged responsibility when evidence became unsustainable. Official denial does not prove nonexistence, and rigorous documentation of facts—then and now—is key to breaking persistent cycles of state cover-up.
References
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