Following Kurdistan, Tsafrir was appointed Mossad station chief in Tehran. He assumed the post during a period of close Israeli strategic cooperation and remained in place as entered its most turbulent phase. His family lived, and his son remembers a country that, at the time, felt open and familiar. That world collapsed in 1978. As protests spread, Tsafrir’s mission shifted from cooperation with intelligence to monitoring unrest and eventually to evacuating Israelis as the revolution gathered force.
As Tehran descended into chaos, Tsafrir oversaw the evacuation of more than 1,300 Israelis. His son remembers standing on the balcony at night, hearing gunfire and watching a city burn. In February 1979, revolutionary forces seized the Israeli embassy in Tehran and raised a PLO flag on its roof. Tsafrir coordinated the final evacuation of the remaining 34 Israeli citizens with US assistance and departed with them, marking the end of Israel’s diplomatic and intelligence presence in the country.
