The Yishuv in Mandatory Palestine had attempted one operation earlier in Romania to provide succour to Jews threatened by the Nazi Holocaust by thwarting their deportation to concentration camps, but it had been compromised, and the two agents dispatched, Arye Fichman of Kibbutz Beit Oren and Liova Gukowsky (Ahisar) Kibbutz Yagur, were captured because the foreign contacts used were often triple or quadruple agents who were German officers who would pass on the details of these kinds of operation. The failure rate of Allied operations to penetrate into that country was high, and it was decided to focus efforts on gaining a toehold in Yugoslavia instead.