By 1943, after establishing direct contacts with the bureaucrat Mihai Antonescu, Zissu obtained from the regime that Jews be allowed to leave for Palestine, as an alternative to deportation. He helped organize the sea transports through to Turkey and Palestine, and resumed contacts with Marton, together with whom he helped smuggle in Hungarian Jews. At odds with Filderman and with many of the Yishuv sponsors, he gathered crucial support from the Zionist resistance organizer, Shaike Dan Trachtenberg. In all, Zissu claimed to have personally rescued some 14,000 Jews in this manner, and was credited with fitting at least seven individual transports, including the ill-fated "Mefküre".