International Journal of Intelligence and

CounterIntelligence

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Intelligence Against COVID-19: Israeli Case Study

Ephraim Kahana

To cite this article: Ephraim Kahana (2021) Intelligence Against COVID-19: Israeli Case
Study, International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 34:2, 259-266, DOI:
10.1080/08850607.2020.1783620

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/08850607.2020.1783620

Published online: 17 Aug 2020.

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International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 34: 259–266, 2021
# 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0885-0607 print/1521-0561 online
DOI: 10.1080/08850607.2020.1783620

EPHRAIM KAHANA

Intelligence Against COVID-19: Israeli

Case Study

With the outbreak of COVID-19, Israeli decisionmakers decided to use the

capabilities of the national intelligence agencies in the “war” against the
pandemic. Three national intelligence agencies were requested to cope with
COVID-19: the Military Intelligence Directorate (MID), known in Hebrew
as AMAN (an acronym for Agaf modi’in); the Israeli Security Agency (ISA),
also known as the SHABAK (an acronym for Sherut bitahon klali) in
Hebrew; and the Mossad.
COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered
coronavirus. It was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China and
resulted in a worldwide pandemic. The first case thus far has been traced
back to 17 November 2019. A total of 6,644,011 cases and 391,839 deaths
had been confirmed in 216 countries and territories as of 6 June 2020,1 while
in Israel, as of the same date, 17,706 confirmed COVID-19 carriers and 292
deaths had been reported.2
On 19 March 2020, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, declared
a national state of emergency, enabling unconventional measures to be
implemented, which included the government decision to harness the
capabilities of the Israeli intelligence community (IC) in the fight against
COVID-19. National intelligence deals with hostile countries and terrorists
by collecting information and conducting research on them and providing

Ephraim Kahana, PhD, has a doctorate degree in international relations. He

is an associate professor and was a past chair of the Political Science
Department and the National Security Program at the Western Galilee
College, Akko, Israel. Presently he is the editor of http://www.strategic-
intelligence.net.

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260 EPHRAIM KAHANA

early warning. Since COVID-19 has been considered a national crisis, the
three Israeli intelligence organizations were tasked with collecting
information about the pandemic and analyzing the data. No other country
has used its intelligence agencies ad hoc for coping with COVID-19. The use
of national intelligence agencies during pandemics is not a new phenomenon.
Several countries employ their national intelligence agencies to protect public
health. France and the United States have intelligence agencies that give early
warnings against epidemics. The U.S. intelligence body responsible for
providing epidemic alerts is the National Center for Medical Intelligence
(NCMI). In response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa between 2014 and
2016, the NCMI devoted significant resources to tracking the spread of the
virus, fearing that it would spread beyond the region. In 2010, Britain began
publishing a national risk registry based on classified intelligence assessments,
which listed global pandemics as the number one risk to civil society.3
Despite the serious risk of pandemics, Israel does not have an intelligence
agency that focuses on this issue, since the main purpose of every intelligence
agency—especially Israel intelligence—is to provide early warning against
threats like wars or terror attacks and to carry out covert actions. Thus, the
purpose of this article is to focus on the role of Israel’s intelligence agencies in
providing early warnings against COVID-19 and the covert action carried
out by the MID, the ISA, and the Mossad to prevent the spread of the virus.

EARLY WARNING AND COLLECTING INFORMATION

Israeli decisionmakers received early warning about COVID-19 from the
U.S. administration. The NCMI informed the U.S. administration at the
beginning of November 2019 that a virus was spreading in Wuhan, China
and compiled a confidential report about it in mid-November 2019. President
Trump decided to share this knowledge with two allies: North Atlantic
Treaty Organization and Israel.4 The information reached decisionmakers in
Israel, including the Israeli Ministry of Health, which did not immediately
respond.5 Another warning came from Professor Gili Regev-Yochay, the
director of the Infectious Disease Epidemiology Unit at the Gertner Institute
at Tel Hashomer Hospital in Tel Aviv.6 In mid-January 2020, Regev-Yochay
had attended a medical workshop in Germany, together with 30 physicians
from around the world. Among them was a physician from China with flu-
like symptoms. Upon returning to Israel, Regev-Yochay also experienced
similar symptoms, and later it became clear that the other participants did
too. Regev-Yochay concluded that they all had been infected with COVID-
19, which, at this point, was primarily in China; thus, Regev-Yochay warned
the director of Public Health Services, Professor Sigal Sadetsky, to be
prepared for an outbreak of COVID-19 in Israel.

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INTELLIGENCE AGAINST COVID-19 261

In order to be prepared, it was necessary to collect further information

about the effects of COVID-19 and how it spread in other countries.
Therefore, Sadetsky realized that the proper agency to collect this
information was Unit-8200. Unit-8200 has the capability to collect a lot of
information on short notice by using signals intelligence (SIGINT) and can
quickly analyze big data. During regular times, Unit-8200 is responsible for
collecting SIGINT and code decrypting and is subordinate to the MID.7 The
unit never before had engaged in collecting civilian medical data while the
Research Division of Military Intelligence had not been involved in
conducting research on it. The Research Division is usually concerned with
analyzing the information gathered by the MID and by the Israeli intelligence
agencies and with providing Israeli decisionmakers with tactical, strategic,
and operative assessments, as well as sharing early warnings about the
likelihood of war, and presenting them to military and political
decisionmakers.8
Thus, with the outbreak of COVID-19 in Israel, the Ministry of Health
(MoH) asked the Israeli intelligence agencies to deal with the pandemic. Both
Unit-8200 and the Research Division of MID engaged in data collection and
research for civilian medical needs within Israel. For that purpose, the MID
established a headquarters in the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer,
staffed by researchers and technology experts from all of the units of Military
Intelligence. At the request of MoH, the Israeli government mobilized the
Sayeret Matkal commando unit of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to
manage COVID-19 testing. Also known as Unit-269 in the MID, Sayeret
Matkal had the skill to assist in the “war” against the pandemic and was
tasked to assist with medical logistics in the IDF’s fight against COVID-19.
Its commandos have been counting the number of respirators in hospitals
and healthcare facilities throughout Israel. Although Sayeret Matkal is more
accustomed to gathering field intelligence deep behind enemy lines, carrying
out counterterrorism operations, and rescuing hostages, during COVID-19
this unit had a key role in managing the pandemic.
Sayeret Matkal and Unit-8200 assisted in monitoring tens of thousands of
tests each week. These units have developed a ventilator in compliance with
medical parameters and requirements. The military technological department,
Unit-81, has also designed sophisticated gadgets, such as monitors for remote
control operations (including ventilators), personal protection equipment,
and designated ambulances.9

A DRASTIC CRISIS REQUIRES UNCONVENTIONAL MEASURES

According to Israel’s Basic Law: The Government, the Knesset (Israel’s
parliament) may declare a state of emergency upon ascertaining that the state
is indeed in a state of emergency. Its duration should not exceed one year but

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can be renewed. In fact, since the declaration of independence in 1948, Israel

has been in a perpetual state of emergency.10 According to the Civil Defense
Law, the government can declare also a “Special Situation on the Home
Front,” and according to Article 90B(a) of the Police Ordinance, the Minister
of Public Security may declare a “Mass Disaster Event.”11
The Israeli government regarded COVID-19 as a “Mass Disaster Event.”12
Given the high rate of infection of the virus, the Israeli government decided
to use the ISA and its digital tracking capabilities to find individuals who had
tested positive for COVID-19 and those who had been exposed to infection.13
However, the issue aroused public criticism and was brought by the
Association for Civil Rights in Israel to the Supreme Court and the
Knesset.14 Such measures were also implemented in China, Singapore, South
Korea, and Taiwan, all which have had an amazing success rate in reducing
the spread of COVID-19 exponentially to linear and then to zero. All these
countries ordered their ministries of health to use the TraceTogether mobile
application in their efforts to fight the spread of COVID-19 through
community-driven contact tracing. TraceTogether notifies the decisionmakers
quickly if someone had been exposed to COVID-19 through close contact
with other TraceTogether users. However, Israel is the only country that used
its three main intelligence agencies in the “war” against the pandemic.15
The digital tracking was pushed through as an emergency regulation
without approval or oversight from Israel’s Knesset. This is the first time that
digital tracking has been used on Israel’s civilian population, allowing the
ISA to trace individuals’ phones in order to determine where a coronavirus
patient, or suspected carrier, had been and with whom they had come into
contact. Using a national ID number and cell phone number, the ISA has
been able to track every individual exposed to COVID-19. However, the ISA
has not been allowed to store the data or to collect conversations or messages
from patients’ cell phones, and the agency has not been involved in
supervising patients or enforcing quarantine restrictions. Instead, the ISA
transfers the data to the MoH for handling. The regulations also have tasked
Israel’s Police with enforcing quarantine and isolation orders, empowering
them with the right to request and receive tracking data about civilians
without any court approval, bypassing one of the key safeguards in the
digital tracking tool’s standard counterterrorism usage. Taking into
consideration that this drastic measure during this crisis may have saved the
lives of many civilians, it justifies the use of ISA technologies in tracking
COVID-19 carriers and those whom they may have exposed and ordering
them to be in isolation.
In addition to ISA tracking technologies, Israeli scientists have developed a
mobile phone application, “The Shield,” for locating data from mobile
phones, comparing it with the information in Health Ministry servers

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INTELLIGENCE AGAINST COVID-19 263

regarding the location histories of confirmed cases during the fourteen days
before their diagnosis.16

COVERT ACTION BY THE MOSSAD

The idea of using the Mossad in the fight against COVID-19 dates back to
an early meeting between Yitshak Kreiss, the director-general of the Sheba
Medical Hospital at Tel Hashomer and Yossi Cohen, the director of the
Mossad.17 In early February 2020, the Sheba hospital realized that it lacked
ventilators and other medical equipment essential for treating COVID-19.
Thus, the MoH authorized the Mossad to carry out the mission of assisting
in the battle against COVID-19.18 The reason for turning to the Mossad was
twofold: First, the Mossad understood that Iran was no longer an immediate
threat to Israel because of its own struggle against the pandemic. Second,
Israel needed the Mossad to help leverage its contacts to purchase necessary
medical equipment for coping with COVID-19. As a result, Yossi Cohen—
the director of the Mossad—became engaged with Israel’s national health.19
The Mossad has been pivotal in helping Sheba hospital to obtain vital
medical equipment. Through its unique set of contacts around the world, the
Mossad has led Israeli efforts to locate and purchase the necessary medical
equipment, mainly testing materials and ventilators. For this purpose, the
Mossad set up a Command and Control Center at Sheba Hospital and from
there distributed the medical equipment to other Israeli hospitals. The
Command and Control Center is staffed by representatives of the Purchasing
Division of the Ministry of Defense and of the IDF’s Unit-81, which is a top-
secret Military Intelligence unit with advanced spying technologies.20
The Mossad agents understood the urgency of their mission and the
difficulty in obtaining the necessary equipment from countries who needed
the equipment for themselves. Thus, they recognized that they did not have
much time to waste. By covert means, Mossad agents succeeded in obtaining
1.5 million surgical masks, tens of thousands of N-95 masks, testing kits,
protective outfits for first-aid workers, and a variety of medications. For this
purpose, Tevel, the Political Action and Foreign Liaison department of the
Mossad, succeeded in obtaining almost everything needed to cope with the
pandemic.21 During regular times, Tevel engages in developing contacts with
countries with whom Israel has no diplomatic relations. Yossi Cohen, the
director of the Mossad, has succeeded in fostering good relations, albeit
clandestine, with those countries and especially the United Arab Emirates.
Due to these kinds of contacts, the Mossad also successfully secured
necessary medical equipment from countries with whom Israel does not have
any diplomatic relations. In addition, the Mossad agents were able to obtain
the expertise from other countries to manufacture ventilators in Israel.
Indeed, this drastic crisis has required drastic measures, including the use of

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covert action and employment of the Mossad, which is well known for its
covert action capabilities.

IMPLICATIONS
The involvement of the Israeli IC in the war against COVID-19 has its
advantages and disadvantages. The IC has impressive abilities in collecting
and processing big data using advanced technologies and trained personnel.
Thus, it has been able to collect big data on the pandemic from around the
world, in order to understand how other countries are handling the
pandemic. The IC, including the MID and the Mossad, has proven that it
has special capabilities that can be tapped quickly in a national crisis. It also
has a reputation of being able to work systematically, intensively, and
continuously day and night in emergency situations.
Employing the ISA in data collection and technological research, which
were developed to deal with hostile countries and terror organizations that
threaten Israeli citizens, and using these resources for medical purposes—
including surveillance of the public—also could be detrimental. It appears
that the involvement of the IC in the civilian sector in Israel is greater than in
any other Western democracy.22 Using the ISA in the field of public health
when Israeli citizens are the objects of data collection and research raises a
number of questions: Is there any tension between such activity and
democratic principles? Can military intelligence personnel make a sharp turn
to engage in civilian matters? Should this role of intelligence organizations be
regulated and even expanded to cover the provision of intelligence to civilian
government ministries, including information about nonsecurity-related
national threats? And finally, should this activity be limited to emergencies,
or can it be conducted in routine times as well?
Given the achievements in coping with the pandemic, it can be concluded
that it was right to harness the capabilities of the IC to improve and protect
Israel’s public health. Despite all the disadvantages described above, when
human life is at risk, drastic measures may need to be taken for a short
period of time, and if a longer period of time is required, the Israeli Knesset
has to approve it; however, the situation here should have been dealt with
caution. Israel’s MoH and its National Security Council should have been
involved in the decisions to engage the IC and to decide how it could best
contribute to Israel’s public health. All these measures should have been
accompanied with scrutiny and transparency throughout the duration of
the crisis.

REFERENCES
1
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak situation, 6 June 2020, https://www.
who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019

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INTELLIGENCE AGAINST COVID-19 265

2
Worldometer, Coronavirus, https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
country/israel/
3
See Nicolaas Mattheus Faure, Chloe Hupin, Xavier Deparis, and Marc Tanti,
“How Did the Medical Intelligence Unit Handle the Influenza Pandemic in the
French Armed Forces in 2009?” 2013 3rd International Symposium ISKO-
Maghreb, 2013, pp. 1–6.
4
“Israeli TV Says US Intel Warned IDF & NATO of Coronavirus Threat in
November 2019 Doubling Down on Claims Dismissed by … US Intel,” 17
April 2020, RT, rt.com/news/486072-us-intelligence-israel-coronavirus/
5
Staff and agencies, “Report: US Intelligence Warned of Coronavirus Threat as
Early as November,” Times of Israel, 9 April 2020, https://www.timesofisrael.
com/report-us-intelligence-warned-of-coronavirus-threat-as-early-as-november
6
The Gertner Institute is a national research setting for the study of
epidemiology and health policy, and it strives to influence health policy in
Israel and assist in its development. http://www.gertnerinst.org.il/e/about_us/
7
Ephraim Kahana, A to Z of Israeli Intelligence (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow
Press, 2009), p. 299.
8
Ibid.
9
Ben Caspit, “Israel Weighs Strategic Implications of Coronavirus Crisis,” Al-
Monitor, 24 April 2020, https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/04/
israel-corona-middle-east-conflict-palestine-security.html
10
Basic Law: The Government, 2001, https://www.knesset.gov.il/laws/special/eng/
basic14_eng.htm. However, a formal definition of a “state of emergency” is not
given in this basic law.
11
See “Law and Emergencies: A Comparative Overview,” Minerva Center for the
Rule of Law under Extreme Conditions, 2016, http://minervaextremelaw.haifa.ac.il/
images/Emergency_Laws_and_Regulations_-in_Israel-_19-_Jan2016.pdf, p. 9.
12
“The Novel Coronavirus,” “Threat to Homefront,” https://www.health.gov.il/
English/Topics/Diseases/corona/Pages/default.aspx
13
Noa Landau and Jonathan Lis, “Total Suspension of Individual Freedom:
Inside Israel’s Secret Coronavirus Debate,” Haaretz, 19 March 2020.
14
“Use of Technological Means to Track the Movements of COVID-19 Patients,
ACRI Petitioned the HCJ against Emergency Regulations Allowing Shin Bet
to Track Civilians,” 18 March 2020, https://www.english.acri.org.il/post/__152
15
There are plenty of mobile phone applications for tracing the location of
people. See, for example, Patrick Howell O’Neill, Tate Ryan-Mosley, and
Bobbie Johnson, “A Flood of Coronavirus Apps Are Tracking Us. Now It’s
Time to Keep Track of Them,” MIT Technology Review, 7 May 2020, https://
www.technologyreview.com/2020/05/07/1000961/launching-mittr-covid-
tracing-tracker/.
16
Stuart Winer, “Health Ministry Launches Phone App to Help Prevent Spread
of Coronavirus,” Times of Israel, 23 March 2020.
17
Yonah Jeremy Bob, “Mossad’s Yossi Cohen Goes to War with Coronavirus
and Israel,” Jerusalem Post, 26 March 2020, https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/
mossads-yossi-cohen-goes-to-war-with-coronavirus-and-iran-622517

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18
Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman and Yonah Jeremy Bob, “Mossad Brings 100,000
Coronavirus Test Kits to Israel,” Jerusalem Post, 21 March 2020, https://www.
jpost.com/health-science/mossad-brought-100000-coronavirus-tests-to-israel-
report-621532
19
Ibid.
20
Zak Doffman, “Coronavirus Fightback: Even Israel’s Top Secret Unit 81 Has
Just Broken Cover For COVID-19,” Forbes, 20 March 2020. Unit-81 is one of
Israel’s most secretive military intelligence units. It is responsible for developing
technologies to support combat operations, and its operations are even more
covert than the better-known Unit-8200, also within Military Intelligence.
During the COVID-19 crisis, Unit-81 came out of obscurity to publicize its
work in combating COVID-19. It is just another example of how the IC has
been recruited to cope with the pandemic.
21
Kahana, A to Z of Israeli Intelligence, p. 193.
22
Mike Retting, “Democracy and Intelligence: An Uneasy Working Partnership,”
Fair Observer, 12 March 2013, https://www.fairobserver.com/region/north_
america/democracy-intelligence-uneasy-working-partnership/

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