The secretive Israeli center that found a coronavirus antibody

Tucked away in an orange grove in Ness Ziona, the history of the Institute for Biological Research began before founding of state

Late on Monday night after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israelis the country would slowly reopen after close to two months, the Defense Ministry announced the Israel Institute for Biological Research had completed a groundbreaking scientific development, identifying an antibody that neutralizes the coronavirus.

The Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) has been playing a key role in the fight against the deadly virus since early February after being asked by Netanyahu. Last month, it announced it had begun testing a COVID-19 vaccine prototype on rodents.

But what is the IIBR? Like Israel’s nuclear facility in Dimona, the IIBR operates under the auspices of the Prime Minister’s Office and works closely with the Defense Ministry.

Most of the work carried out by the institute is a heavily guarded secret reinforced by military censorship. But its history began before the founding of the State of Israel.

In 1948, a Science Corps, known by its Hebrew acronym HEMED, was established within the IDF. A unit devoted to biological warfare was established under the name HEMED BEIT. It was housed in a single building in a remote orange grove outside Ness Ziona, dozens of kilometers south of Tel Aviv.

Everything regarding the unit was kept a closely guarded secret from the start. And while it was controversial to many senior officials at the time, scientists as well as then-prime minister David Ben-Gurion were adamant that Israel know how to defend itself against nonconventional attacks.

According to reports,

HEMED BEIT was accused of being involved in several operations that targeted the Arab population prior to the establishment of the state in an attempt to drive them from their villages.

Avner Cohen, in a 2001

article entitled “Israel and Chemical/Biological Weapons: History, Deterrence and Arms Control,” wrote that the scientists involved in HEMED BEIT “firmly believed” that “if microbiology could help in providing the means to establish the Jewish State, so be it.”

In 1993, one of the scientists involved in HEMED BEIT, Ephraim Katzir, was interviewed by Israel’s Hadashot news and was quoted by Cohen in his report as saying: “We planned various activities to get a sense of what Chemical Biological Weapons (CBW) is and how we could build potential in this area. We needed to know how to defend against such weapons. We knew that in surrounding countries others were developing biological weapons. We believed that scientists should contribute to the strengthening