Egypt. His role in the Lavon Affair The Lavon Affair refers to the scandal over a failed Israeli covert operation in Egypt known as Operation Susannah, in which Egyptian, American and British-owned targets in Egypt were bombed in the summer of 1954. It became known as the Lavon Affair after the Israeli defense minister Pinhas Lavon, who was forced to resign because of the incident, or euphemistically as the Unfortunate Affair (Hebrew: עסק הביש Esek HaBish). Israel admitted responsibility in 2005. In his diaries, Al-Gammal mentions that he joined Unit 131, which was to carry out the operation, along with many names which later proved to be of great importance, such as Eli Cohen, an Israeli spy who became an adviser to the defense minister in Syria. According to the EGID, Al-Gammal had the major role in the discovery and arrest of the unit. Later, Cohen was discovered by Syrian counter-espionage experts that caught him in the act of sending a radio message after large amounts of radio interference brought attention. Achievements according to the EGID Notified Egypt of the time of the Suez Crisis attack. Notified Egypt of the time of the 1967 attack. Developed close friendships with Moshe Dayan, Ezer Weizman and David Ben-Gurion. Supplied Egypt with a lot of information that helped Egypt to achieve tactical surprise and complete all objectives during Operation Badr (1973) Notified Egypt of the intent of Israel to conduct nuclear experiments and test some modern high-tech weapons while meeting his handler in Milan. In popular culture The life of Al-Gammal as a spy was written by famous writer Saleh Mursi. Because of its invigorating accounts, Egyptian television made a three-season series based on the book. Both book and series were called "Ra'fat El-Haggan". By that time almost the entire Arab world knew of the story and praised him for his work and sacrifice. Al-Gammal loved acting and appeared in 3 successive movies with the then-famous Egyptian actor Bishara Wakim. See also Gumaa AL-Shawan Heba Selim Ibrahim Shaheen and Inshirah Moussa References Further reading Bar-Zohar, Michael and Nissim Mishal (2014), Mossad - The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service, HarperCollinsPublishers, Dunstan, Simon (2009), The Six Day War 1967: Sinai, Osprey Publishing, External links https://web.archive.org/web/20160304001141/http://nakshaat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=94&t=33294 https://web.archive.org/web/20070624192148/http://www.akhbarelyom.org.eg/adab/issues/586/1100.html https://web.archive.org/web/20070629214643/http://www.sotaliraq.com/i/article_2003_02_2_ll15.html https://web.archive.org/web/20070914151252/http://www.alrai.com/pages.php?news_id=85895 1927 births 1982 deaths 20th-century Egyptian businesspeople Egyptian spies People from Damietta