Agency(ISA) in 1950 while he was still serving in the Israel Defense
Forces (IDF). After the Sinai Campaignin November 1956, he con-
ducted the ISA operations in the Gaza Strip until the Israeli with-
drawal in 1957. Ahituv had close personal and working relations with
the chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Moshe Dayan, who
recommended him to become Yosef Harmelin’s deputy in the ISA in- Ahituv had a key role in the search for Yossele Schumacher
(1961–1962) when he was stationed abroad with the Mossad. Most
of his career in Israel was dedicated to the Arab Affairs Branch in the
ISA. Ahituv revealed the attempted smuggling of arms to Israel by
Archbishop Hilarion Cappucciin 1974 shortly before his appoint-
ment as the director of the ISA in that year. His religious background
and his law studies made him sympathetic to Jewish settlers in the
West Bank. Ahituv and Prime Minister Menachem Begin had excel-
lent relations. However, his career as director of the ISA will be re-
membered as the period of arresting, interrogating, and torturing the
innocent Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officer Izzat Nafsu. See also
NAFSU AFFAIR.
AIR INTELLIGENCE SQUADRON/LAHAK MODI’IN
(LAMDAN).Prior to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, this Israel Air
Force (IAF) unit was named Branch Air 4 (Anaf Avir 4); after the
war it was renamed Lahak Modi’in. The intelligence squadron pri-
marily uses aerial reconnaissance and radio intercepts to collect in-
formation on strength levels of Arab air forces and for target com-
pilation. In addition to reconnaissance aircraft, pilotless drones are
used extensively to observe enemy installations.
On the eve of the Yom Kippur War, the then head of Branch Air 4,
Colonel Rafi Harlev, together with the unit’s head of research, Lieu-
tenant Colonel Yehuda Porat, had a key role in formulating assess-
ments based on the underlying Conceptthat Egypt would not be
ready to wage war as long as its basic arms requirements of Scud
missiles and Sukhoi bombers were not met. Based on information
from the Mossad’s Top Source, Marwan Ashraf, these arms were
considered essential by Egypt’s military establishment for hitting
IAF airfields as well as strategic targets in Israel. The Air Intelligence
Squadron assessment was based primarily on the assessments of the
Research Department of Military Intelligence.AIR INTELLIGENCE SQUADRON/LAHAK MODI’IN•706-102 (02) A-G.qxd 3/24/06 7:23 AM Page 7