From the Liveblog of
Thursday, September 7, 2023
Mossad reveals photo of ‘the Angel,’ Egyptian agent who warned of Yom Kippur war
Ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, the Mossad spy agency publishes a photo of one of its handlers together with the agent code-named “the Angel,” who gave the spy agency a precise warning that war was about to break out.
The agency also publishes a transcript of the conversation between Mossad chief Zvi Zamir and the agent, later revealed to be Ashraf Marwan, the son-in-law of former Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser.
The day before the war broke out Marwan warned Zamir that “There is a 99% chance that the war will start tomorrow… it will start simultaneously on both fronts, the Egyptian and the Syrian.”
Marwan told Zamir that the Egyptians planned to launch a massive artillery barrage and “move almost the entire army across the Suez Canal.”
He also told him that the Syrians “planned to capture the Golan Heights.”
Despite the warnings, the political and military leaders largely ignored the warnings and the attack caught Israel by surprise.
On June 27, 2007, Marwan plunged to his death from the fourth-floor balcony of an upscale London apartment building. Whether he fell or was pushed has never been definitively established.
