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Mossad brings in 100,000 coronavirus tests to Israel

The Mossad pulled together 100,000 corona tests and shipped them to Israel.

By World Israel News Staff

The Mossad, Israel’s vaunted intelligence agency, has been enlisted in the fight against corona and in a special operation overnight Wednesday brought into the country 100,000 testing kits from overseas.

Those kits are just the start as the Mossad intends to bring up to 4 million in the coming days.

Ynet reports that the Mossad isn’t normally involved in procurement of material, but took the mission upon itself given the critical shortage of testing kits. According to the news site, the intelligence agency scoured the world and located kits in two countries.

Itamar Grotto, deputy director general of Israel’s Health Ministry, said, “Unfortunately, what is coming right now is not exactly what we are missing. I mean, there are all kinds of components within the test and that is not what we are missing at the moment. The problem is that we are missing swabs.”

The Health Ministry issued a statement on Thursday morning that it would release an updated list of patients. The number will likely be higher as the number of tests has increased, with 2,200 being carried out on Wednesday.

Israel wants to reach the point where it tests 3,000 for the virus daily.

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Israel has increased the number of labs testing samples for the presence of the virus. Last week, only two hospitals conducted corona tests, Tel Hashomer in Tel Aviv and Rambam Hospital in Haifa.

On Sunday, three more labs were added – Soroka Hospital in Beer Sheba, Hadassah Ein Kerem in Jeursalem and an additional lab in Tel Hashomer Hospital.

The Health Ministry has also established a special testing site at Ganei Yehoshua by the Hayarkon River in northern Tel Aviv. Temporary structures were set up in a large parking lot near the popular park.