Mossad has stopped over 50 Iranian-backed terror attacks on Jews since Oct. 7 - sources

The volume of global terrorist attacks planned by Iran against Jews and Israelis in foreign countries since Oct. 7 and prevented by the Mossad has at least doubled that of the preceding year, reaching more than 50 such attempted attacks worldwide, the Magazine has learned.

Although the world has learned about a relatively small number of these incidents, there are far more that the world has no idea about.

In September 2023, Mossad Director David Barnea revealed in a speech at Reichman University that the Mossad had thwarted 27 global terrorist incidents in foreign countries which Iran had planned against Jews and Israelis.

The fact that this number has at the very least doubled shows how motivated Tehran has been to harm Jews and Israelis across the globe and the vast resources it has poured into that goal.

Sometimes these terrorist attacks are prevented via cooperation between the Mossad and official foreign partner spy services; sometimes the Mossad acts clandestinely and independently in these foreign countries; and sometimes it works with spy agencies from foreign countries which are even partially hostile to Israel or have no diplomatic relations.

Such hostile countries or nations lacking diplomatic relations with Jerusalem have not necessarily prioritized helping Israelis or Jews per se but are affronted by the idea that a foreign actor like Iran would carry out a terrorist operation on their sovereign territory, regardless of the target victim.

A very small and incomplete list of countries that the Mossad has worked with includes Cyprus, Germany, Denmark, and Turkey.

In May, the Mossad announced that it had also helped thwart terrorist attacks against Jews in Sweden and Belgium.

Assassinating Hamas leaders

Of Hamas leaders, the Mossad has said it has a long arm and will get all of them for their role in the Oct. 7 slaughter of 1,200 Israelis and the taking of over 250 hostages. For example, the Magazine has learned that the statement made by Barnea in January, the day after Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri was assassinated, still applies: None of them are going to live.

Barnea has promised this, and he does not even view it as a promise for the distant future but as something to rapidly carry out.

The Mossad does not plan to sit around waiting for other processes to be completed, and additional assassinations could happen in many ways and in many places. It will be uncompromising in hunting to sever the heads of the snake. There could also be attacks taking place within Iran itself.

Exploding beepers and other electronic devices

Neither Israel nor the Mossad nor IDF intelligence is publicly taking responsibility for blowing up Hezbollah’s beepers and other electronic devices on successive days in mid-September, wounding between 3,000 and 4,000 Hezbollah operatives and killing hundreds.

But around half a dozen foreign outlets and Hezbollah have pointed the finger at Israel, the Mossad, and IDF intelligence, and the Magazine (which also has significant Western sources) has independently confirmed a number of significant details relating to this saga.

The idea that the Mossad has heavily penetrated Hezbollah should not be surprising, given that the IDF and other aspects of the defense establishment have managed to locate and destroy thousands of weapons that Iran has tried to smuggle to the Lebanese terrorist group and “next door” to Syria for years.

In fact, the reason that Hezbollah switched to the beepers that blew up in mid-September was its concerns over prior successful spying on them by Israel intelligence.

The clock ticks on the Iranian nuclear threat

In April, Iran publicly threatened to complete the process of developing nuclear weapons if Israel dared to strike the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities. The Magazine has learned that the Mossad viewed Tehran’s public threat as a potential game changer.

Even though Israel has always known that Iran would try to secretly move toward a nuclear weapon, in public Iran has always pretended that nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islamic law. The agency viewed this public shift as indicative that Iran’s approach to the nuclear weapons issue has become more dangerous and aggressive.

Israel’s spy agency has never for a second let down its efforts to thwart Iran’s ability to achieve a nuclear weapon, and this is a multi-front battle covering a variety of technological issues and disciplines, the Magazine understands.

In mid-August, the Magazine and some other media outlets reported that Iran was making new significant advances in the area of nuclear bomb detonation. Combined with increased warnings from IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Maj.-Gen. Amir Baram to the Knesset and from US intelligence officials to the US Congress, this has raised alarms regarding the nuclear threat from the Islamic Republic to new levels. 

Some, such as Institute for Science and International Security President David Albright, have said that this could have caused the timing on how long it could take Iran to deliver a nuclear weapon to drop to as low as six months or even less, down from earlier estimates of one to two years.

Despite the Mossad’s constantly being on the watch and despite these alarms sounding off on Iranian progress in the nuclear weapons group arena, top sources have told the Magazine that the amount of time it would take Iran to actually mount a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile capable of reaching Israel remains at 22 to 26 months – largely where it has been for some years.

The source of the discrepancy between this latest information which the Magazine obtained from sources, and information obtained from other competing sources, seems to be different experts and institutions describing distinct goal points.

It may be that the Islamic Republic might be able to fit a nuclear warhead on a rocket or missile, which could hit its nearby neighbors in the Gulf, in a mere three to six months.

However, out of Tehran’s 3,000 ballistic missiles, only around 1,000 of them can reach Israel. Furthermore, these missiles, which typically must also exit and reenter Earth’s atmosphere in order to arrive in Israel, according to sources are still much farther off from being able to be fitted with a nuclear warhead.

For one, it is not enough to overcome the problem of fitting a nuclear warhead on the missile. The missile must also be able to overcome issues involved in reentering Earth’s atmosphere along with the nuclear warhead – a completely different obstacle.

At the same time, the fact that Iran is no closer to being able to strike Israel with a nuclear weapon according to these sources does not mean that Israel’s efforts to thwart the ayatollahs’ nuclear aspirations, still viewed as an existential threat, have slowed down to any degree.

For example, the Mossad and its top officials have had an endless number of sleepless nights remaining vigilant to combat Iran on this issue; and if it turns out that the Jewish state eventually has to turn up the level of force being used to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon several notches, the Mossad is ready to do so at any moment.

Moving from the world of intelligence analysis of Iran’s potential threat to the practical world of what to do and within what time frame, some observers have said that Israel and its allies must act before the US presidential election on November 5, lest the outcome of the elections push Iran toward nuclear breakout.

Other observers have said that October 18, 2025, is a deadline for Israel to act against Iran’s nuclear program.

That is when limits on Iran’s centrifuges for enriching uranium start to expire – even if there was a return to the 2015 nuclear deal – and is also discussed as the last moment when the US, the European powers, and the UN Security Council could snap back global sanctions against Iran according to the 2015 nuclear deal.

In contrast, the Mossad’s view is that it cannot afford to think about Israeli security in terms of which candidate will become president and whether one of them is better or worse; rather, the spy agency needs to rest on its own independent capabilities.

In contrast, the global sanctions snapback mechanism threat is viewed as a critical tool for keeping Iran at least somewhat in line on the nuclear issue, and the Mossad is concerned about it expiring.

With only one year left until it expires, the Mossad believes it is vital to convince the US and the rest of the West to exercise the snapback option. If Iran continues with its nuclear violations through 2025, the Mossad believes the world will finally need to act and cease kicking the can down the road.

Mossad head-to-head with Iran

Regarding the Mossad, what has it been doing against Iran lately?

Aside from the destruction of at least three Iranian nuclear facilities attributed to the Mossad by Tehran between July 2020 and June 2021, as well as the assassination of Iran’s nuclear chief Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in November 2020, the organization has not been remotely quiet in recent years.

From April 2022 to June 2022, the Mossad publicly took credit for abducting Mansour Rasoulu of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps global terrorist Unit 840 and released video footage of him confessing to masterminding a terrorist plot against Jews in Turkey; and the Mossad was accused by Iran of killing around a dozen nuclear scientists and terrorism officials.

In June 2023, the Mossad revealed that it had thwarted an Iranian terrorist attack on Jews in Cyprus by kidnapping the mastermind from within Iranian territory. The stunning revelation included exposing the identity of the mastermind, Yusef Shahabazi Abbasalilu, who then admitted to the terrorist plot in detail during his interrogation.

Outside of Iran, the Mossad, according to foreign sources, assassinated Sayyed Reza Mousavi in December 2023 and Mohammed Reza Zahedi on April 1 – both top IRGC chiefs and both in Damascus.

On July 31 this past summer, Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, with Iran attributing the assassination to the Mossad.

The New York Times, The Jerusalem Post, and The Jewish Chronicle had previously reported that Haniyeh was killed by an internally planted bomb and not a missile, but Iran later presented substantial evidence to support the missile theory.

The Magazine now assesses, without addressing who planted the bomb, that even Iran’s elaborate missile theory is false and an attempt to save face regarding the larger security failures that an internal bomb implies as compared to a missile fired from a distance.

Moreover, in our assessment, a very small planted internal bomb was used purposely, and the airstrike option was specifically rejected, so as to ensure beyond any doubt that not a single Iranian or anyone other than Haniyeh would be killed. This was crucial to ensuring that the Islamic Republic would understand that it was not the target but rather Hamas and Haniyeh were the targets.

All of this was accomplished despite the facility being a special IRGC facility that was very well guarded and prominent.

Those carrying out the assassination knew exactly which room to attack and the exact right time.

Unexplained explosions in Iran, claimed to be gas leaks or the like

Sources have told the Magazine that there are not many “coincidences” in Iran when military or nuclear-related facilities blow up.

It is true that sometimes there could be some actual divine intervention or a random gas leak, but sometimes it could be a variety of tools used by sophisticated actors with vast amounts of planning to block Iran from nuclear or terrorist progress. Sources indicated there are many operations happening all the time, and there is an “invisible hand” directing matters behind the scenes.

A public conflict between Iran and Israel took place on April 13-14 when the Islamic Republic launched over 300 aerial threats, including 120 ballistic missiles, at Israel – one of the largest aerial missile and drone attacks in history.

While much has been written about the air defense prowess of the Israeli Air Force, the US and the UK, and Sunni countries defending their sovereign air space in shooting down around 99% of the threats, little attention has been given to the more secret role of the Mossad.

While its actions remain classified, sources indicated that high-quality intelligence – and the Mossad often works on the ground in enemy countries – made a significant difference in providing warnings and other critical information to make the larger defense success possible.

Gaza hostages/ceasefire negotiations

Barnea pulled off an incredibly difficult tightrope walk to reach a deal with Hamas in November 2023 which returned 84 Israeli hostages and 24 foreign hostages.

Since then, he has worked hard with IDF Maj.-Gen. (res.) Nitzan Alon and others to return the rest.

Like the IDF, the Shin Bet, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, the Mossad emphatically does not regard the Philadelphi Corridor as having the existential value that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently tried to attribute to it.

But the greater question is whether Netanyahu carries some secondary contributing blame – along with Hamas, who did the kidnapping – for failing to reach a deal that could have returned the hostages before six of them were killed by Hamas on August 29.

Going back some months, on May 27 and 31, US President Joe Biden endorsed a hostage and ceasefire framework agreement for the world. Sources have told the Magazine that at the time, the issues of the Rafah crossing and the Philadelphi Corridor were not on the table, even though Israel had started to gain control of them earlier in May. Part of this was because the deal published in late May was developed prior to the Rafah invasion.

Also, we have learned that, at the time, there was no apparent problem with the conditions and symmetry between Israel and Hamas regarding the list of hostages and prisoners who would be involved in the exchange in any deal.

Essentially, at that moment, Israel was ready to cut the deal, but Hamas had not yet signed. However, Hamas had already agreed to a breakthrough concession that could potentially allow Israel to return to war after the 40 or so days of phase I of the deal in which Jerusalem would have already gotten back 18 to 30 hostages.

Then the IDF fully took over Rafah, and the situation changed. This also meant potential new conditions for a deal.

The counterproposal that Hamas then offered on July 2 had too many changes and was not acceptable from the Israeli perspective.

This part about July 2 is where things get murkier.

It appears that Hamas did set new conditions regarding the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners which went beyond the May principles set down by Biden and the other mediators, including Qatar. But at the same time, defense officials, the political opposition, and the Hostage Forum have all argued that it is possible that had Netanyahu agreed to withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor as part of phase I (while retaining the capacity to return there after around 40 days), Hamas’s additional issues might have been ironed out before six Israeli hostages were killed on August 29.

In any event, by August 16, the mediators – the US, Qatar, and Egypt – put a new deal on the table which Israel accepted. Discussions have been ongoing with Hamas since then, but the terrorist group’s public statements indicate that it is unwilling to move beyond its July 2 counteroffer, partially because it believes Israel is close to being drawn into larger conflicts with Iran and Tehran’s other proxies.

In turn, Hamas believes that Israel will be more flexible in negotiations if it is more overwhelmed with larger problems on multiple fronts. Although some sources were still optimistic about a deal with Hamas in mid-September, the same sources had voiced optimism in late August, and by mid-September such a deal was certainly farther away than before, and not closer.

One slender reed of hope for a future deal is that sources confirmed that Israel is prepared to leave the Philadelphi Corridor during phase II, including all of Gaza, despite public claims to the contrary by Netanyahu. Rather, sources implied that Netanyahu’s big fight is to maintain a presence at Philadelphi beyond phase I and into phase II, to ensure that all Israeli hostages are released, as opposed to only the first group of 18 to 30.

Those trying to get Hamas to release the hostages remain determined in their cause despite obstacles posed by Hamas, as well as any potential obstacles posed by Israel’s own cabinet.

Saudi normalization

Pressed that Israel has missed its historic opportunity to normalize relations with the Saudis, given Netanyahu’s refusal to endorse a “day after” plan for Gaza that gives a role to the Palestinian Authority, sources demurred.

Rather, sources indicated that normalization with the Saudis will still come about, but only after the US presidential election.

Despite his public refusals to make any concessions to the PA, there are hints that Netanyahu will give anything he needs to, including some kind of at least potential pathway toward a Palestinian state, after the American election. 

If and when a new push comes for Saudi normalization, the Mossad will be at the forefront of the normalization process.      