Mossad (Hebrew: HaMossad leModi'in v'leTafkidim Meyuhadim, “institute”) is one of the five major intelligence agencies of the state of Israel. It has its headquarters in Tel Aviv and is thought to employ approximately 1,200 employees who are responsible for the nation’s intelligence operations, covert actions and counter terrorism. It is considered the most important of the state’s intelligence gathering agencies and its head reports directly to Israel’s Prime Minister.

Prior to Israel’s creation in 1948, a precursor to today’s Mossad, was the Mossad Le'aliyah Bet, a group of Zionists which acted to bring Jewish exiles to Palestine. Their actions were kept secret and their aim was to circumvent the quotas that the British Mandate imposed on immigration to Palestine. However, with the advent of the Jewish state, Reuven Shiloah, who would become the organization’s first director, recommended the creation of a centralized security organization to direct the, until-then, dispersed state security forces. Mossad came into being in December 1949. In 1951 it became part of the prime minister’s office.

Mossad has performed a number of high profile operations in the prosecution of its duties as defender of the state’s interests and in its role as bringer to justice of its erstwhile persecutors, especially those who were previously members of the Nazi party and among militant Arabs who have perpetrated acts against Israeli nationals. Perhaps the most notable example of Mossad’s oversees operations is the rendition of the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann from Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1960. Eschewing the need for extradition proceedings, Mossad snatched Eichmann from a bus in Argentina, tried him in an Israeli court and subsequently condemned him to death.

Equally notorious was the Mossad operation entitled "Wrath of God," which was undertaken to exact revenge after the massacre of eleven Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics by the militant Palestinian group Black September. The operation sought out the surviving kidnappers and those Palestinian Liberation Organization members believed to be involved in the massacre’s support and financing. This earlier operation and the later, Operation Spring Youth, in Beirut, Lebanon accounted for the lives of scores of Palestinians and Arabs, including Ali Hassan Salameh, Yasser Arafat’s security commander.

As of 2002, Meir Dagan is the Mossad’s director.