Yael Man

Yael Man (born Eileen Steiner) was a Canadian-born Israeli intelligence agent who was instrumental in the 1973 Israeli raid in Lebanon known as "Operation Spring of Youth". Posing as an American screenwriter living in Beirut, she carried out surveillance of three Palestine Liberation Organization officials who were killed in the raid.

Early life

She was born in Canada in 1936 and moved to New Jersey with her family at the age of three. Her father was a physicist and her mother was a housewife. Her family was Jewish but not religiously observant. After finishing school she wanted to become a veterinarian but instead studied nursing at her father's insistence. She abandoned her nursing studies and married a Zionist student with whom she moved to New York City, where she studied psychology and computer science at Columbia University. She worked as a computer programmer in New York after graduating in 1961. She and her husband separated in 1965. She had become interested in Zionism and in February 1968 she moved to Israel, where she worked as a computer programmer.

Operation Spring of Youth

In preparation for the 1973 attacks, Yael Man was sent to Beirut to carry out surveillance on three of the targets: Kamal Adwan, Muhammad Youssef al-Najjar and Kamal Nasser. All three lived in two adjacent high-rise apartment buildings on Verdun Street.

Later life

Yael Man retired from Mossad after serving for 15 years. She later married her Hebrew teacher, whom she met shortly before her retirement. She died in August 2021.