airplane with their hands up. Israeli intelligence found that not one of
the wanted men was among the passengers, although some Syrian of-
ficials close to President Hafiz Assad were.HOFI, YITZHAK (1927– ).Born in Palestine and known by his nick-
name Haka, Hofi was a member of the Palmah underground militia
prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948. There-
after he served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and fought in the
1948–1949 War of Independence. After the war he became a para-
troop commander and saw action in the most perilous military oper-
ations during the 1950s. On the eve of the 1967 Six-Day War, he was
engaged in military planning for this confrontation. At the time of the
1973 Yom Kippur WarHofi, now a major general, served as head
of the IDF Northern Command.
Hofi was appointed director of the Mossadin 1974. He served in
this position at the time of the planning of the IDF rescue operation in
Entebbe known as the Yehonathan Operation(1976). The Mossad’s
role was especially significant through its station in Nairobi. In 1977
Hofi, with his assistant David (Dave) Kimche, was sent to Morocco
to prepare the secret meeting between Israeli foreign minister Moshe
Dayan and Egyptian deputy prime minister Hassan Tohami to initiate
a peace process between Israel and Egypt. In Morocco, Hofi met his
Egyptian counterpart, General Kamal Hassan Ali. The meeting paved
the way for the historic visit of President Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem in
November 1977. As the Mossad director in the late 1970s, Hofi was
involved in planning the Moses Operation, which conveyed
Ethiopian Jews to Israel. He was still the organization’s director at the
time Israel planned the air bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor in June
1981, although when invited to attend a cabinet meeting, he opposed
the idea; instead, he recommended firmer diplomatic measures to halt
the Iraqi nuclear program.
On 18 June 1981 Hofi requested an interview with the Israeli daily
Ha’aretz. In it, he said that politicians should not boast publicly about
the air strike against the Iraqi reactor. As the director of the Mossad, his
name was not mentioned; at that time, Israeli law forbade public disclo-
sure of the names of the heads of the Israeli intelligence organizations.
The sole exception was the name of the director of Military Intelli-
gence(DMI). In one incident in the 1970s, when Hofi and some MossadHOFI, YITZHAK • 11506-102 (03) H-P.qxd 3/24/06 7:24 AM Page 115