Moshe Marzouk

Moshe Marzouk (Hebrew: משה מרזוק; or Musa Lieto Marzuk, Arabic: موسى ليتو مرزوق; born 20 December, 1926-31 January, 1955) was an Egyptian Jewish spy, labelled as a terrorist and hanged by Egypt in 1954 for his part in an Israeli false flag operation.

Marzouk was born in Cairo to a Karaite family who had immigrated from Tunisia in the early 20th century, though they retained French citizenship. While working as a surgeon at the Jewish Hospital in Cairo in the early 1950s, he was recruited as a spy by the Mossad, along with nearly a dozen other young Egyptian Jews.

In 1954 the group carried out a series of bombings in Egypt; the post office in Alexandria, and two American libraries in Cairo and Alexandria, and a British movie theatre — as part of Operation Suzannah, which came to be known as the Lavon Affair. The group was caught and tried, during which time they were tortured. Marzouk publicly took responsibility for the group and everything that they had done, and was one of two group members who were hanged in a Cairo prison. Two others committed suicide after 5 months of torture, and the rest were jailed for 14 years before being deported to Israel in 1968.

The Israeli media portrayed Marzouk as a martyr, and communities and gardens were subsequently named after him, as were dozens of children born in 1955, although the Israeli government did not at the time acknowledge that he had died in the service of Israel.

References

• The Lavon Affair" by Doron Geller, Jewish Virtual Library
• The Lavon Affair by David Hirst, Excerpts from his book: The Gun and the Olive Branch, 1977, 1984, Futura Publications
• The Lavon Affair: Israel and Terror in Egypt, Mideastweb.org