Moshe Marzouk

Moshe Marzouk was born in 1926 in Cairo

Moshe Marzouk was born in Cairo in 1926 to a Karaite family that had come from Tunisia and held French citizenship. As a young man he was active in the Zionist movement and played sports at Maccabi Cairo. He wrote regularly for a Karaite journal in Egypt, signing with his Hebrew name.

He studied medicine in Egypt and finished in 1951. He trained in surgery and anesthesia at the Jewish Hospital in Cairo.

Israeli military intelligence recruited him into a cell of Egyptian Jews trained in Israel. In 1954 the cell planted bombs at a post office, cinemas and American information centers in Cairo and Alexandria, with no casualties. The aim was for the attacks to look like the work of Egyptians and harm Egypt's ties with the United States and Britain.

The members were caught in 1954, and his trial began on 11 December 1954. He was sentenced to death for treason and spying for Israel, and his mother's plea to Gamal Abdel Nasser for clemency was refused. He was hanged in Cairo's central prison on 31 January 1955.

After his death he was given the rank of lieutenant colonel in the IDF. In 1977 his remains were reburied on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, and streets in several Israeli cities bear his name.