Shlomo Hillel, a Baghdad-born Israeli operative who in the late 1940s and early ‘50s used bribes, fake visas, and a network of smugglers to move more than 120,000 Jews from Iraq to Israel, died Feb. 8 at his home in Ra’anana, Israel. He was 97.

Mr. Hillel was just 23 when the Haganah, a paramilitary organization sent him undercover to Iraq. There, disguised as an Arab, he helped smuggle small number of Jews to Israel in trucks. Later he devised a ways to smuggle thousands in an operation called Michaelberg. Using various other disguises and with the help of an Iraqi travel agency, he arranged 950 flights, called Operation Ezra and Nehemiah, with 124,000 Jews migrating to Israel.

In 1988, Mr. Hillel received the Israel Prize, the country’s highest civilian award. He served in the Knesset from 1952 to 1959, and then in diplomatic posts. He returned to the Knesset in 1969, was elected speaker in 1984, and stayed until he was defeated in 1992.