Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s firm rejection stopped an Israeli proposal to relocate Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula during the 2023 Gaza war, according to former Mossad director Yossi Cohen’s newly released memoir. Cohen writes that he devised the plan, which he claims was intended as a temporary evacuation in the aftermath of Hamas’s 7 October attack.
In the memoir — published in Hebrew as “With Stratagems, You Make War” and in English as “Sword of Liberty: Israel, the Mossad and the Secret War” — Cohen says the Israeli security cabinet approved the proposal and tasked him with seeking Arab support. He recounts travelling to several Arab capitals and offering to secure international guarantees from the United States, Britain, Japan, China and India to ensure that the move would not become permanent.
Cohen writes that the plan collapsed when Sisi rejected it outright. At the time, Egypt’s president publicly said that displacing Palestinians from their land would be an injustice Egypt would “never participate in,” adding that such a move would destabilise Egyptian and Arab national security. Sisi reiterated Egypt’s long-standing position in support of an independent Palestinian state and the preservation of its land and population.
Iran operations central to memoir
A substantial portion of Cohen’s book details Mossad’s long-running covert operations against Iran’s nuclear and ballistic-missile programmes. He writes that in the early 2000s, Mossad chief Meir Dagan established a special unit after intelligence suggested Pakistan and later North Korea were supplying nuclear expertise to Tehran.
Cohen says the unit infiltrated Hezbollah and Iran with compromised equipment — some used during the 2006 Lebanon war — and deployed cyber tools against Iran and its regional allies. The unit compiled detailed files on Iranian military commanders and nuclear scientists, tracking their movements, habits and routines. Cohen describes himself as one of the officers most immersed in the mission.
He credits Benjamin Netanyahu with supporting Mossad’s efforts, while maintaining that many of the key concepts originated with him. Yet Cohen also absolves Netanyahu of responsibility for Israel’s failure on 7 October 2023, placing the blame on the security establishment and criticising internal disputes among security chiefs.
Soleimani killing and cooperation with the US
Cohen writes that he presented a detailed plan for assassinating Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Quds Force. The proposal, he says, was backed by all intelligence chiefs but opposed by then-Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi. Netanyahu sided with Kochavi and instructed Cohen to notify Washington, prompting irritation from former US President Donald Trump and then-CIA director Gina Haspel, according to Cohen.
He says he travelled urgently to the United States, supplying extensive intelligence on Soleimani — whom he referred to as “the Little Prince.” The Americans later adopted the codename for the January 2020 drone strike that killed Soleimani. Cohen says the United States awarded him a medal of appreciation afterwards. He adds that Iran retaliated during the June 2025 conflict by striking his home in Tel Aviv.
A self-portrait shaped for future leadership
Critics say the memoir doubles as a political positioning document, presenting Cohen as a potential future Israeli leader. He emphasises his religious Zionist background, his willingness to take risks, and Mossad operations he claims to have shaped. He frequently references admiration from foreign intelligence officials and recounts encounters with Donald Trump, who once greeted him as “the strongest man in the Middle East,” and Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he calls a fellow intelligence officer.
Cohen cites David Ben-Gurion, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, Menachem Begin and Meir Dagan as inspirations, arguing that Israel needs leadership capable of unifying a divided society. He quotes Dagan’s guidance that security services must “strike the enemy with a surgeon’s scalpel” and use clandestine means to delay future wars for as long as possible.
Hezbollah infiltration: the ‘Abdullah’ case
The memoir also recounts the early-1990s recruitment of a Lebanese agent close to Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh. Cohen says he operated under the cover of an Argentine businessman seeking regional partnerships and gradually built trust with a well-educated militant he calls “Abdullah.”
He describes initial unarmed meetings followed by encounters where he carried a concealed weapon, while Mossad operatives monitored the man’s movements “like a researcher tracking a laboratory specimen.” Cohen characterises “Abdullah’s” ideological loyalty to Hezbollah as an asset rather than an obstacle, noting that the recruit sought long-term financial security abroad.
