On September 25, 1997, Mossad operatives from the special forces’ unit of Kidon (Hebrew for Bayonet) poisoned Khaled Meshal, the chairman of the political bureau of Hamas, in Amman, Jordan. One of the operatives held a small tube and sprayed Meshal’s ear with the material.
The Mossad modus operandi is to send one of its doctors into the arena of operation in case an operative is injured and needs medical treatment, without risking exposure at a local hospital. A female doctor, accompanied by Mishka Ben David, one of Mossad intelligence officers, was chosen for the mission in Jordan. They posed as an Israeli couple on vacation in an Amman hotel. The doctor and Ben David possessed an antidote, which would neutralize the poison if it leaked and injured the operatives by mistake. Israel kept a backup antidote at another location in Amman.
The mission failed. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed negligence and arrogance in executing an operation on Jordanian soil, Israel’s most strategic ally in the Middle East. Just three years earlier, Jordan had signed a peace treaty with the Jewish state. However, the intelligence was also poor and the performance by the
— source Jews For Justice For Palestinians | Yossi Melman | Oct 13, 2022