Mustafa Hafez (25 December 1920 – 11 July 1956) was an Egyptian military official, who, as head of Egyptian military intelligence during the
Egyptian occupation of Gaza, organized ''
fedayeen campaigns'' that infiltrated Israel from Gaza in the mid-1950s. Hafez was assassinated by a book bomb, considered one of the first
targeted killings by Israel.
Biography
After the
1948 Palestine War
The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. During the war, the British withdrew from Palestine, Zionist forces conquered territory and established the Stat ...
, Egypt
occupied Gaza. Col. Mustafa Hafez moved to Gaza with his family in 1952 as chief of
Egyptian military intelligence in Gaza.
In July 1952, the
Egyptian monarchy
''Egyptian'' describes something of, from, or related to Egypt.
Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to:
Nations and ethnic groups
* Egyptians, a national group in North Africa
** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years ...
was
overthrown by the
Free Officers Movement. For its support of the revolution, the
Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood
In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood ( ''jamāʿat /al-ikhwan/el-ekhwan al-muslimīn'', ) is a Sunni Islamist religious, political, and social movement,Eric Trager,The Unbreakable Muslim Brotherhood", ''Foreign Affairs'', September October 2011, p. ...
(EMB) was rewarded with one of its members appointed as the head of
Gaza
Gaza may refer to:
Places Palestine
* Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea
** Gaza City, a city in the Gaza Strip
** Gaza Governorate, a governorate in the Gaza Strip
Mandatory Palestine
* Gaza Sub ...
, then a municipality of Egypt. In exchange, the EMB agreed to end
cross-border attacks on Israel. However, following an Israeli raid into Gaza in 1955, Egyptian president
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was an Egyptian military officer and revolutionary who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 a ...
appointed Hafez to organize raids of commandos, called ''
fedayeen
Fedayeen ( ''fidāʻiyyūn'' "self-sacrificers") is an Arabic language, Arabic term used to refer to various military groups willing to sacrifice themselves for a larger campaign.
Etymology
"Fidayun" is the plural of "fidayi" ( ''fidāʻiyy'' ...
'' to infiltrate Israel. Fedayeen attack campaigns against military and civilian targets in southern Israel in August 1955 and April 1956 provoked Israeli responses.
Israeli intelligence chief
Yehoshafat Harkabi
Yehoshafat Harkabi (; 21 September 1921 – 26 August 1994) was chief of Israeli military intelligence from 1955 until 1959 and afterwards a professor of International Relations and Middle East Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Bio ...
proposed Operation Saris to assassinate Hafez and Lt. Col. Salah Mustafa, the Egyptian
in Amman, who sent ''fedayeen'' to infiltrate Israel from Gaza and Jordan, respectively. Hafez was killed at his headquarters in Gaza on 11 July 1956, with a bomb hidden in a book given to him by a Gazan Arab named Muhammad Tallaka, an Israeli
double agent
In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organi ...
. Upon opening the book, Hafez was killed instantly, in one of the earliest
targeted killings by Israel. Two days later, a book bomb killed Mustafa. The twin assassinations did not cease the ''fedayeen'' activities, which ended only after a full-scale Israeli military operation.
Personal life
Hafez had five children, including activist
Nonie. After Hafez's death, the Egyptian military moved the family to Cairo, where Nasser visited the family to offer condolences. Later in life, Nonie moved to the United States, converted to Christianity, and changed her name.
See also
*
2024 Lebanon pager explosions
On 17 and 18 September 2024, thousands of handheld pagers and hundreds of walkie-talkies intended for use by Hezbollah exploded simultaneously in two separate events across Lebanon and Syria, in an Israeli attack nicknamed Operation Grim Beep ...
*
List of Israeli assassinations
The following is a list of alleged and confirmed assassinations reported to have been conducted by the State of Israel. It includes attempts on persons who were reported to have been specifically targeted by the various Israeli security, intellige ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hafez, Mustafa
1956 deaths
Egyptian military officers
Egypt–Israel relations