Former Mossad chief David Barnea has said Israel intentionally released images of their covert operation in Iran during the June 2025 conflict to provoke mass arrests and make it harder for Iranian forces to find real Israeli agents. “One of the reasons we immediately released an official video on the morning of Operation Rising Lion, with the Mossad logo, was to protect the agents who were there,” Barnea said, according to comments The Jerusalem Post reported on 25 October. Barnea said the leak of the footage of Israeli operations in Iran was not just an attempt to showcase the Mossad’s reach but also a strategy to overwhelm Iranian counterintelligence, causing them to make mass arrests, making it more difficult to distinguish operatives from ordinary citizens. “We wanted to make sure they arrested so many people in Iran that they wouldn’t be able to distinguish the wheat from the chaff and would eventually release everyone,” he said. Barnea said Iranian authorities arrested 21,000 people during the operation. Read more: Israel intentionally released footage of Mossad operatives in Iran to provoke mass arrests, ex-chief says A screengrab from a social media video shows cars set on fire during a protest at Saadat Abad Square in Tehran, 9 January 2026 (UGC/AFP)
Israel intentionally released footage of Mossad operatives in Iran to provoke mass arrests, ex-chief says
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