Coronavirus Update: Israel Uses Spy Agency To Hunt For Ventilators, Face Masks

Mossad (or the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations), Israel's national intelligence agency, is doing all it can to acquire the mechanical ventilators badly needed to keep alive patients critically ill from COVID-19. Israel, which had 7,030 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 36 deaths as of Thursday, is critically short of these life-saving medical devices.

Working with its two other partner spy agencies in the Israeli Intelligence Community (Aman and Shin Bet), and with Israeli government ministries, Mossad has succeeded in acquiring some 230 ventilators, of which 160 will be flown to Israel by Wednesday, said the Times of Israel. Mossad's goal, however, is to acquire 7,000 ventilators, according to an explosive exposé Tuesday by the “Uvda” investigative news program on Channel 12.

The latest ventilator shipment to Israel was the third by Mossad over the past few weeks aimed at acquiring more of these devices.

“I have overseen many operations in my life, and I’ve never dealt with such a complex operation,” said a Mossad officer identified by the TV program only by the Hebrew initial “Het."

Het said the government has ordered Mossad to acquire more than 130,000 objects needed to fight the pandemic. These supplies include face masks, virus test kits, swabs, medicine, personal protective equipment (PPE) and, most importantly, ventilators, most of which are made in China.

“The world is selling (ventilators) through cracks," said Het. "We need to find the cracks. We are world champions in operations, and we know how to manage complex operations."

Het said Mossad has been able to acquire 25,000 N95 respirators, 20,000 coronavirus test kits, 10 million surgical masks and 700 plastic protective overalls for health workers. He said Mossad is utilizing its special connections to win the race. He also said the spy agency is doing what the whole world is doing-- trying to get its hands on stocks "ordered by others,” which is patently illegal on its face.

“We had a country in Europe where our trucks arrived at the factory’s doors but another European country was ahead of us and loaded it up,” he revealed.

Het is confident that because of Mossad's operation Israel will weather the pandemic much better than Italy, Spain and the United States. He's also confident Israel will face no shortage of medical equipment.