groups in Israel like Matzpen. ISA agents succeeded in penetrating
these groups, including the new underground organization. In due
course, Matzpen’s members were caught and tried. Turki and Adiv
were sentenced by the Haifa district court in March 1973 to 17 years
in prison for treason. Vered was sentenced to 10 years. Naarani and
Kaarawi, despite their lesser role in the underground group, were sen-
tenced to 15 years in prison for other security offenses. Haddad was
sentenced to two years, and other members of the underground were
given minor penalties.
The members of this underground were generally considered ama-
teur spies. Turki was regarded as the most professional of them. He
and Adiv were released in 1985 in an extraordinary and controversial
prisoner exchange deal with Ahmed Jibril of the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine–General Command.TUSHIA OPERATION (1956).Tushiameans “initiative” in Hebrew.
The Tushia Operation was started after the 1956 Sinai Campaignby
Israeli intelligence in the hope that its operatives in Egypt would be
able to contact Egyptian Jews and persuade most if not all to leave
for Israel. On 9 November 1956 Major Avraham Darand Aryeh
(Lova) Eliav, together with their radio operator, slipped into the war
zone in French military uniforms pretending to be French officers.
They advanced with the British and the French troops as they
marched in the direction of Cairo and Alexandria, where there were
large Jewish communities. But the British and the French halted the
invasion, and the three Israelis found themselves stranded in Port
Said. There they found only 200 Jews, mostly elderly and with no in-
terest in moving to Israel. In the Jewish synagogue in the town, they
encountered only 65 Jews willing to leave with them for Israel. Se-
cretly the three took them to the harbor and, with the assistance of the
French Army, got them aboard two French military landing craft. Af-
ter sailing out about two miles (three kilometers), the two craft met
up with two tiny Israeli Navy vessels camouflaged as Italian fishing
vessels. The newcomers were greeted by Shlomo Hillel, a veteran of
the Israeli intelligence community. A day later these Egyptian Jews
reached Israel. Dar and Eliav arrived in Israel a day later. The Tushia
Operation was relatively easy to execute thanks to French Army as-
sistance.296 • TUSHIA OPERATION06-102 (04) Q-Z.qxd 3/24/06 7:26 AM Page 296