Mossad keeps fighting Iran in the shadows as Gaza war drags on - analysis

News of the Mossad’s success in helping Cyprus thwart a plot by Iran to kill Israelis and Jews is in some ways a small footnote to a much larger story.

Last week, the National Security Council put out an unprecedented warning to Israelis traveling to over 80 countries, including European ones normally thought of as quite safe.

The NSC put out the notice, but that information came from the Mossad, The Jerusalem Post can confirm.

In fact, under the radar, the intelligence agency is now likely operating at a high point in terms of its activity worldwide to protect Israelis and Jews.

Here and there, Israel leaks the spy agency’s involvement in helping a foreign intelligence service, as in Cyprus, but the Post understands that most of the Mossad’s life-saving work across the globe is kept quiet.

There was one rare deeper dive into the Mossad’s global activities to protect Jews three months ago.

At an unusual public speech on September 10 at Reichman University, Mossad Director David Barnea said that his agency and other intelligence agencies in Israel and among foreign allies had thwarted 27 Iranian terror plots over the course of 2023 against Israelis all over the world on almost every continent.

Barnea showed off videos from Iranian terror agents that the Mossad had captured and interrogated in Tanzania and Cyprus. He added that whoever sends terrorists against Israelis and Jews “will be brought to justice. We will raise our level of action against you.”

Mossad spy activity in overdrive amid Israel-Hamas war

He listed Tanzania, Georgia, Cyprus, Greece, and Germany as a few examples, naming Yousef Shahbazi Abbasalilo as an Iranian operative in the terror operation in Cyprus and Hamidreza Abraheh as an Iranian operative in the one in Tanzania.

But that was before October 7. Since the Gaza war started, the Post understands that the Mossad’s efforts have gone into overdrive.

This means that since that disastrous day, the agency is deployed throughout the world to an unprecedented degree, and possibly with higher investment in diverse capabilities than ever before.

The IDF’s war against Hamas and its armed deterrence of Hezbollah may be the main story in the daily headlines, but the Mossad is no less engaged with Iran, and has similarly called up its “reservists” (some long retired) in large numbers to help increase its reach and capacity.

All of this doubtless requires a higher budget within the greater defense budget.

In 2020, the Post reported on a mostly ignored State Comptroller report about the explosive growth of the Mossad – far beyond its approved budget in recent years as compared to the shrinking budget of the IDF at the time.

The report was an extremely rare and detailed disclosure of usually classified internal Mossad proceedings and debates regarding the long-term future of the organization, including a debate about moving its headquarters from Glilot, north of Tel Aviv, that took place in 2011.

In fact, State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman’s first major security report said that the spy agency blew through its NIS 1.5 billion budget to NIS 2.6 billion in recent years.

This was happening while the IDF was facing cutbacks across-the-board and having to make hard choices about discontinuing major weapons programs or forces.

Regarding the Mossad’s growth, the report revealed that in June 2017, then-director Yossi Cohen told a gathering of the Mossad High Command that he “is pondering the dilemma of the need to do more regarding the willingness of the state to facilitate the growth. As a reminder, we are reaching much larger numbers [than our budget] in contrast to (a different security agency) [the comptroller deleted the name] which halted its growth, and the IDF which is also expected to reduce it [its growth].”

Cohen continued: “We are going in the opposite direction and in contrast to the global trend where fewer employees are needed; with the Mossad it is the opposite.”

If the Mossad was blowing through its budget pre-October 7 when the IDF was being pressed for cuts, it seems inevitable that the agency will be reaching way beyond its NIS 2.6 billion budget now.

The Mossad is also reaching out in an unprecedented degree to allied foreign intelligence agencies to keep Israelis and Jews safe around the world in the current heightened post-October 7 threat environment.

All of this is taking place at the same time that the agency continues needing to be the world’s lead player on preventing Iran from crossing the line to a nuclear weapon.

At least for a moment on Sunday, the Cyprus announcement brought a reminder of the constant vigilance of Israel’s warriors in the shadows.