For years, Wadie Haddad was one of Israel’s most wanted enemies. A founding member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Haddad was widely considered the mastermind behind a wave of international airline hijackings during the late 1960s and 1970s. His most notorious operation was the 1976 hijacking of Air France Flight 139, which ultimately led to Israel’s daring hostage rescue at Entebbe.
After Entebbe, Israeli leaders reportedly decided Haddad had become one of the highest-priority targets on Mossad’s list. But there was a problem: he was almost impossible to reach, living as a protected asset in the heart of Baghdad. So instead of trying to shoot or bomb him, Mossad allegedly came up with a plan that was both simple and astonishingly creative.
they would turn one of his daily habits into the weapon.
According to investigative journalist Ronen Bergman in Rise and Kill First, Mossad recruited or controlled a deep-cover asset inside Haddad’s inner circle. The agent, known only by the codename “Sadness,” reportedly had unrestricted access to Haddad’s home and personal belongings. On January 10, 1978, “Sadness” allegedly swapped Haddad’s regular tube of toothpaste with an identical-looking one that had been laced with a specially engineered toxin developed by the Israel Institute for Biological Research.
The poison wasn’t meant to kill instantly. Quite the opposite. Every time Haddad brushed his teeth, tiny amounts of the toxin were absorbed through the lining of his mouth and into his bloodstream. The doses were so small that nothing seemed unusual at first, but over the following weeks they slowly accumulated. By the time symptoms appeared, the poison had already done irreversible damage. Because the toxin reportedly left few identifiable traces, doctors struggled to understand what they were dealing with.
Within days, Haddad became seriously ill while in Baghdad. He suffered severe abdominal pain, rapidly lost weight, and developed symptoms that left Iraqi doctors baffled. They suspected everything from hepatitis to an infectious disease, but none of the treatments worked. As his condition deteriorated, Yasser Arafat reportedly arranged for Haddad to be flown to East Berlin under the alias “Ahmed Doukli,” where East German physicians made one final attempt to save him. In an ironic twit of fait, Haddad took his toiletries with him to Germany, where he continued to unknowingly poison himself by brushing his teeth every day. Despite extensive testing, the East Germans never identified the true cause of his illness and Haddad died on March 28, 1978.
For years, the circumstances surrounding his death remained a mystery. One early account claimed Mossad had poisoned a box of Belgian chocolates sent to Haddad, a story popularized in Aaron Klein’s Striking Back. Later, Ronen Bergman’s research, based on interviews and archival material, pointed instead to the poisoned toothpaste operation. While Israel has never officially confirmed its role, the toothpaste story has become one of the most famous accounts of Mossad’s quiet, low-profile assassination methods.
The operation also illustrates a basic truth about intelligence work: the most effective operations aren’t always the loudest. There were no explosions, no gunfire, and no dramatic chase through city streets. The weapon was a simple tube of toothpaste sitting on a bathroom sink. It was an operation built on patience, precision, and the understanding that the best covert actions are often the ones no one realizes have happened.
Nearly five decades later, Wadie Haddad’s death remains one of the most remarkable and controversial stories in the history of covert operations. Whether seen as a remarkable intelligence success or a stark example of the moral questions surrounding targeted killings, the alleged operation has become part of the legend of Mossad, illustrating the ingenuity and meticulous planning for which the agency is known.
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