Zvi Zamir, ex-Mossad chief who warned of impending 1973 Mideast war, dies at 98

Zvi Zamir, the former Mossad head who warned of the 1973 attack on Israel, dies at 98. Zamir is seen here giving a speech at The Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University in October 2013. (Tel Aviv University YouTube channel)

JERUSALEM — Zvi Zamir, a former director of Israel’s Mossad spy service who warned that Israel was about to be attacked on the eve of the 1973 Mideast war, has died, the Israeli prime minister’s office announced Tuesday. He was 98.

Zamir led the Mossad from 1968-1974, a turbulent period that included a number of Palestinian attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets around the world. Among them was an attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics in which Palestinian militants killed 11 members of the Israeli delegation.

Israel subsequently hunted down and killed members of the Black September militant group who had carried out the attack. The campaign was widely seen as a success in Israel, though Israeli agents also killed a Moroccan waiter in Norway in a case of mistaken identity.

“Under his command, the Mossad led daring intelligence-gathering and counter-terrorism operations, including operations around the world to strike the leaders of the ‘Black September’ organization that was responsible for the 1972 murder of Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich,” the prime minister’s office said.

But Zamir is best remembered for his warning of the impending 1973 war.

Last year, the Mossad released details of a warning that Zamir received from an Egyptian agent, Ashraf Marwan, that Egypt and Syria were about to attack. In a meeting in London on the eve of the war, his source warned there was a “99 per cent chance” that Egypt and Syria would attack the next day, Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar.

“The Egyptian army and the Syrian army are about to launch an attack on Israel on Saturday, Oct. 6, toward evening,” Zamir wrote.

But his warning was largely ignored, and Israel was caught by surprise the following the day. Israel suffered heavy losses in the 1973 war. Zamir remained bitter about the incident for the rest of his life, and the war remains a source of national trauma.

The surprise Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that triggered Israel’s current war in Gaza is frequently compared to the 1973 conflict.

The prime minister's office said Zamir's tenure was "characterized by extensive action, while dealing with significant challenges, especially the fight against Palestinian terrorism around the world and the military threat to the state of Israel, which peaked with the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War.”

The prime minister’s office said he died on Monday. It gave no details on a cause of death or survivors.

Zamir was born in Poland and immigrated to what is now Israel as an infant, the Haaretz daily said.

He served as a commander in the Palmach, the pre-state predecessor of the Israeli military, and fought in the war surrounding Israel’s establishment in 1948. He held a number of top positions in the Israeli military, including head of its southern command, before he was appointed director of the Mossad.