10 Dec 2022; MEMO: A document has revealed that late Colonel Binyamin Gibli, head of Israeli Military Intelligence between June 1950 and March 1955, was directly ordered by then-Defence Minister Pinhas Lavon to bomb US and UK targets in Egypt in 1954, Arab48.com reported on Friday.
Known as Operation Susannah, Gibli ordered nine Egyptian-Jewish undercover agents, members of Unit 131, to bomb UK and US targets.
The bombing aimed to turn the US and UK against then-Egyptian revolutionary leader Gamal Abdul Nasser and push the UK to reverse its decision to withdraw from the Suez Canal, which was nationalised by Abdul Nasser.
Gibli wrote in his biography, which had been banned, that Lavon disowned him after the operation was uncovered.
According to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, he accused Lavon of: "Throwing him to the dogs and turning him into a scapegoat."
The operation failed as Egyptian security forces uncovered the unit and arrested its members. One of them committed suicide in prison, two were executed and others spent long periods in jail.
Israeli authorities carried out several investigations into the issue, known as the Lavon Affair, that led to contradictory findings, resignations and political divisions. The case was never closed.
