Former Mossad Chief Reveals Why Israel Broadcast Iran Operation Videos in Real Time

Former Mossad chief David Barnea has disclosed that the intelligence agency's extraordinary decision to release real-time videos of its agents operating inside Iran during June 2025 was made in part to overwhelm and confuse the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The comments, made to a closed audience at the Priority Summit on Thursday, were leaked on Sunday.

On June 13, 2025, the Mossad published rare and sensational footage of its role alongside the air force in Israel's preemptive strike against Iran's ballistic missiles and air defenses. Three videos, with agents' faces concealed, showed the targeting of ballistic missile sites, air defense systems, and preparations for the attacks. The footage appeared to show drones being launched from inside Iranian territory.

Iran had previously accused the Mossad of using drones in a June 2021 attack on the Karaj facility and in other operations. It was later confirmed that the agency employed an entire warehouse of drones to strike and sabotage targets in Iran, along with numerous remote-controlled vehicles and a significant number of human agents on the ground who assisted in assassinations.

While the IDF's actions received extensive coverage, the videos offered an unusual front-row view of operations the Mossad would normally never even acknowledge. Speaking at the summit, Barnea said the footage was published deliberately to trigger mass arrests and make it harder for the IRGC to identify genuine 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 in a video shared by Yediot Ahronot, whose authenticity the Jerusalem Post confirmed. "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 added that Iran did in fact release all of the detainees.

Barnea said the IRGC arrested 21,000 people on the second day of the fighting. "You have to imagine that when you arrest 21,000 people, even if you've caught an agent or two, eventually you have to release them because everyone's story will be the same: I was walking down the street, I was driving a car, they arrested me," he said, stressing that with so many detainees the IRGC had no way to identify real agents.

He added that many of those arrested or executed by the IRGC as alleged Mossad agents had no connection to the agency, and that nearly all of the actual operatives were never caught. At the close of the June 2025 operation, Barnea even publicly taunted the IRGC with a statement declaring, "We will [continue to] be there, like we have been there."

His account may resolve the mystery of why the Mossad risked broadcasting its agents' actions in real time. In September 2025, the Jerusalem Post reported exclusively that dozens of Mossad women penetrated Iran and carried out a variety of operations during the June 2025 attacks on Tehran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, appearing to take on more of every kind of spy role than their predecessors.

That report also said Barnea sent hundreds of Mossad agents, or individuals run by agents, into simultaneous operations in Iran, all highly coordinated and drawn from a diverse spectrum of backgrounds. Beyond Israeli agents, the service had reached new levels in recruiting and training local dissident Iranians to act against the ayatollahs' regime.

While the early 2026 war with Iran is viewed by many as a mixed bag, the June 2025 war is regarded as the most successful Israeli operation of the past three years, alongside the exploding beepers used against Hezbollah.