Yacov Nimrodi, Israel's First Military Attaché in Iran, Passes Away

Yacov (Ya'akov) Nimrodi, Israel's first military attaché in Iran, passed away at the age of 97 after a long illness at Sheba Medical Center. He was born in Baghdad in 1926. During his time in the Israeli army, Nimrodi led several highly sensitive operations, some of which remain classified. According to the Times of Israel, he participated in Israel's first targeted assassination in 1956, killing Egyptian Colonel Mustafa Hafiz, who was recruiting Palestinian refugees for cross-border attacks against Israel, with a bomb hidden in an envelope. The report states that from 1955 to 1959, Nimrodi established and headed the Mossad office in Tehran, helping Iraqi Jews who wanted to flee to Israel and founding 'a valuable espionage network.' He served as Israel's first military attaché in Tehran from 1960 to 1969, signing defense contracts with Iran. Israel had very close relations with Iran before the 1979 revolution. From Tehran, he participated in the 1966 'Operation Diamond,' during which an Iraqi pilot flew a MiG-21, the most advanced Soviet aircraft at the time, and landed it in Israel. This successful operation provided valuable information to American and Israeli scientists. After serving in the army, Nimrodi became a businessman, focusing for a time on Iran, where he built dozens of desalination plants. In 1992, he became the owner of the Maariv newspaper and appointed his son Ofer as editor-in-chief. In the 1990s, Nimrodi was convicted of 'obstruction of justice' due to a wiretapping scandal against a rival newspaper. His son Ofer was also convicted in the same case and went to prison in 1998.