Israeli commander dismissed for sending spy to obtain Palestinian tahini

A senior Israeli military intelligence official will be dismissed from the army for ordering a group of agents to procure tahini from a West Bank village, an IDF spokesman said Friday according to Haaretz.

The lieutenant colonel at Unit 504, the Israeli military's human intelligence agency, oversaw an operation in which agents were ordered to purchase boxes of the sesame seed paste.

He now faces dismissal in what Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi said was "a harsh violation of moral and professional ethics".

The IDF's Chief Intelligence Officer Yuval Shimoni, the unit's commander, and two other commanders will also be reprimanded, the statement added.

The strange operation was revealed by investigative television programme Uvda. On two occasions, agents in the elite Unit 504 were dispatched to a West Bank village to purchase tahini for Chief Intelligence Officer Shimoni.

Top commanders allegedly ordered a senior handler to send agents to a Palestinian village to buy the traditional sesame seed paste, Haaretz reported.

Shimoni was allegedly unaware that a special operation was conducted to procure the tahini and paid for the boxes.

The dismissed officer acted against military orders, a military probe found, and provided only "partial and misleading information".

Shimoni was dismissed because he should have inquired about the origins of the tahini he purchased, according to Haaretz.

The military probe was launched after Uvda's report revealed their findings earlier this week to Military Intelligence chief Tamir Hayman.

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