(José Niño, Headline USA) When Mossad began its campaign of targeted assassinations, relatively few knew how deeply Europe was involved.
While the operation has long been shrouded in tales of Mossad’s daring endeavors, new research by Dr. Aviva Guttmann, detailed in her forthcoming book Operation Wrath of God: The Secret History of European Intelligence and the Mossad’s Assassination Campaign, reveals some surprising details. Guttman’s book was previewed last week by Haaretz journalist Yossi Melman in an article entitled “Wrath of God, Revisited: How Europe Enabled Mossad’s Secret Campaign of Assassinations After Munich”
Guttmann’s unprecedented access to the secret archives of the “Berne Club” — a clandestine forum of European intelligence agencies — shows that Mossad’s campaign was deeply reliant on European cooperation and intelligence sharing.
Founded in 1969, the Club de Berne brought together intelligence services from Switzerland, West Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Luxembourg, Austria, the Netherlands, and Belgium. Later, the network expanded to include the U.S., Canada, Australia, Ireland, Spain, Sweden, Norway, and Israel. In the latter case, Israel was represented by Mossad and Shin Bet.
Contrary to Mossad’s image as an omnipotent force, the agency’s success depended heavily on information provided by Berne Club members: addresses, license plates, flight records, hotel bills, and phone logs. This intelligence was crucial for identifying and locating targets across Europe.
Known as “Operation Wrath of God,” Israel’s campaign was authorized at the highest levels by Prime Minister Golda Meir and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. It reportedly aimed to eliminate not just the direct perpetrators of the Munich massacre, but also those suspected of providing assistance to Palestinian militant groups such as Black September, Fatah, and the PLO. Mossad’s operations were not always smooth, with some missions marked by mistakes and misidentifications.
The first assassination from Operation Wrath of God occurred in Oct. 16, 1972, when Wael Zwaiter, a Palestinian intellectual and alleged representative of Fatah, was gunned down outside his Rome apartment. The 11 bullets that killed him mirrored the number of Israeli athletes murdered by Palestinian terrorists at the Munich Olympics several months earlier.
Zwaiter’s assassination marked the opening salvo of Israel’s secret campaign to hunt down individuals it held responsible for Munich and other terrorist attacks.
After Zwaiter, the next major target was Dr. Mohammad Al-Hamshari, the PLO representative in Paris. Despite a lack of direct evidence linking him to Munich, he was considered a “soft target” and was seriously wounded by a bomb planted in his apartment. Intelligence for these hits often came through the Kilowatt system, underscoring the centrality of European cooperation.
Over the following months, Mossad eliminated several more Palestinian operatives in Cyprus, Rome, and Paris. These assassinations sparked a cycle of retaliation, with Palestinian groups launching letter bombs, attacking Israeli diplomats, and even seizing embassies. This escalating tit-for-tat was labeled by Time magazine as the “Battle of the Spooks” — a clandestine war fought across European capitals.
One of the most notorious failures of the operation occurred in Lillehammer, Norway, in 1973, when Mossad agents mistakenly killed Ahmed Bouchiki, a Moroccan waiter, believing him to be Ali Hassan Salameh, a top PLO operative. Norwegian authorities arrested and convicted several Mossad operatives, exposing the agency’s European network and causing the campaign to be halted.
Despite public outrage and official condemnations, Guttmann’s research shows that European intelligence agencies continued to cooperate with Mossad behind the scenes. Many European governments, facing their own threats from Palestinian militants, saw value in Israel’s aggressive approach — even if it meant tacitly supporting extrajudicial killings on their soil.
The secret nature of the Berne Club allowed these countries to maintain deniability while quietly enabling Mossad’s operations..
This parallel intelligence order operated independently of official foreign policies and public scrutiny, shaping the course of the Cold War and the Arab-Israeli conflict in ways previously unknown.
As Guttmann notes, the legacy of this cooperation raises questions about present-day intelligence operations executed by Israel. If Mossad relied on European support in the 1970s, similar alliances, be they formal or tacit, may still underpin covert actions in the present.
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino
