The “Lamb Code”: How Corporal Waxman’s Capture Was Kept Secret While His Tape Crossed Israeli Checkpoints
Al Jazeera’s “Ma Khafi A’zam” programme, in its episode on the martyred commander Mohammed Deif, revealed new details of the 1994 capture of Israeli soldier Nachshon Waxman.
Shahab exclusive report
Al Jazeera’s “Ma Khafi A’zam” programme, in its episode on the martyred commander Mohammed Deif, revealed new details of the 1994 capture of Israeli soldier Nachshon Waxman, including the code word (the lamb) used in communications between one of the operation’s executors and Deif, and the story of how the videotape and documents were carried across Israeli checkpoints to Gaza.
In October 1994, Deif led the operation to capture Waxman, a soldier in the Israeli army’s Golani Brigade. During the operation, Deif made his first audio and video appearance in the media, masked, announcing the Qassam Brigades’ responsibility for the operation and presenting its demands.
In his testimony for the episode, released prisoner Jihad Yaghmour recounts the details of the operation, which he carried out with Salah Jadallah, who was sent by Deif from Gaza, along with Hassan al-Natsheh and Abdul Karim Badr.
According to Yaghmour, the fighters who carried out the operation seized Waxman in their car near Ben Gurion Airport, overpowering him in less than a minute, and then held him in Jerusalem.
Yaghmour reveals that the plan included keeping the soldier in Jerusalem while the claim of responsibility statement was issued from the Gaza Strip, in order to confuse Israeli intelligence services.
To carry out the media part of the plan, Yaghmour travelled himself to Gaza carrying the videotape and the soldier’s official documents, which he had hidden under his clothes. He crossed the Israeli checkpoint and then the Palestinian police checkpoint on the outskirts of Beit Hanoun, and handed the consignment to a trusted intermediary.
That same night, Yaghmour spoke by phone with Deif using a code word that referred to the captive soldier as “the lamb.” With that single word, the secret of where the soldier was being held remained concealed within the call, while the tape had already reached Gaza for the statement to be released from there.
Waxman was held for six days, from Sunday until Friday evening, before Israeli special forces stormed the location; the soldier was killed and his captors were martyred.
This testimony sheds light on part of Deif’s method of managing military operations, combining meticulous planning, strict secrecy and security deception, across the distance between Gaza and occupied Jerusalem.
