Giora Tzahor

Giora Tzahor was born in 1941 in Saint-Étienne

Giora Tzahor was born George Weiss in Saint-Étienne, France, in 1941, to a Jewish family. During the German occupation of France in World War II, he was hidden and raised in a monastery. He later moved to Israel on his own.

He served in the Armored Corps, became a tank commander and completed an officers' course. He reached the rank of Lieutenant and served as a deputy commander in Battalion 46. In the Six-Day War his unit destroyed 7 Jordanian tanks near Nablus, and he was badly burned.

In 1968 he joined the Mossad and took part in many of its operations. He became deputy head of the Kidon unit in the late 1970s and its commander in 1984. In 1986 he led the operation that brought Mordechai Vanunu to Israel, where Vanunu was tried and convicted.

He retired from the Mossad in 1992. He was killed in a traffic accident in July 2012 while riding his bicycle. A street in Hadera, where he lived, is named after him.