In spy movies, intelligence operatives are typically characterized by a distinctive appearance: a tilted hat, long raincoat, worn clothes, and day-old stubble. But in real life, it's commonly said that a good intelligence officer is precisely one who can blend into a crowd and appear like an ordinary person, someone whose face doesn't get etched in memory.
For years, the Israeli public was unaware of David Barnea's name, and even less so his face. The crossroads of his life allowed him to choose other paths; a small turn, and he would have remained in the world of finance and capital markets. Perhaps it was precisely that "ordinary" appearance that helped him stay under the radar. But at a certain point, the man who began his career as an investment advisor rolled into a completely different track – a track that led him to head one of the world's strongest and most sophisticated intelligence organizations. This image justified itself in the past year when Mossad, under Barnea's leadership, achieved astounding accomplishments that changed the Middle East.
Naturally, Barnea doesn't give interviews and doesn't even brief journalists. Mossad doesn't even have an official spokesperson. Still, uncharacteristically for sitting Mossad chiefs, he can occasionally be heard giving speeches. Through dozens of conversations with associates, journalists, and colleagues, we tried to trace his character.
David Barnea was born in Ashkelon in March 1965 to a religiously observant family. His paternal grandfather, Rabbi Yehuda Brenner, left Germany in 1933 following the rise of the Nazis, together with his wife Bina and their son Yosef, David's father. Yosef Brenner studied at a yeshiva in Bnei Brak and, at the age of 16, enlisted in the Palmach, also participating in the War of Independence. He later continued serving in the IDF and reached the rank of brigadier general in the air force, a role in which he was responsible for military procurement from the US. His wife Naomi was an educator and served as a school principal.
In David's early childhood, the Barnea family moved to Rishon LeZion, and he was sent to the "Ein HaKore" school. Already in his youth, he aspired to be a commander, and to that end, he attended the military boarding school for command in Tel Aviv. Those years were the golden age of military boarding schools, which produced a large number of senior officials in the security establishment. In Barnea's class also studied Zohar Dvir, later deputy chief of police; Deputy Commissioner (ret.) Kourosh Barnor; Brig. Gen. (res.) Ariel Karo, who served as chief intelligence officer, and five more boys who later reached the rank of major general or brigadier general. In the class above him studied Maj. Gen. (res.) Gal Hirsch, and in the class below him Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, with whom he remains friends to this day.
His classmates describe a sociable and pleasant boy with extensive knowledge that helped him succeed in his studies. Yair Raman, who studied with Barnea both in elementary school and in the military boarding school, remembers him as "a person head and shoulders above others who always stood out and excelled, a beloved friend and excellent athlete."
Military service and early career
In 1983, Barnea enlisted in the Paratroopers Brigade, and in April 1984, joined the chief of staff's reconnaissance unit. His team commander for three years was Elad Magal, brother of presenter Yinon Magal. "David stood out as a principled guy, someone pleasant to work with, and also an excellent soldier in all parameters that make a person a good commando fighter: weapons proficiency, demolition, first aid, navigation," Magal describes. "In the operational company, he was responsible for a supremely important area and performed this role excellently. He signed on for an additional year to continue filling this role in the next cycle as well. He's a modest guy, the style of 'still waters run deep.' A person who doesn't chase honor and doesn't try to impress, speaks pleasantly and gives others space to express themselves. An organized and cool-headed type, even when needing to function under pressure."
Magal says Barnea maintained contact with him and team members throughout the years, and even in recent years he makes sure to come with his family to celebrations and gatherings of unit alumni.
An additional detail Magal notes is Barnea's love of gardening. "When I would visit him at home over the years, I always saw a well-maintained garden. Despite having very busy periods, he found time to invest in garden care. In general, he's a person who does everything well," Magal concludes.
After his military discharge, Barnea went to the US and completed bachelor's and master's degrees in business administration. Upon his return to Israel, he worked as a senior manager at an investment bank and later at Clal company. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination in November 1995 deeply affected him, and following it, he decided to leave the banking world and move to a position with national significance. With the help of an acquaintance, he found his way to Mossad.
Barnea is married with four children, and the family lives in a community in the Sharon region. Several of his acquaintances described him as a family man despite the difficulties and limitations the position creates. Zohar Barnea, the Mossad chief's younger brother, is a Breslov Hasid. "David is a person of many virtues, with exceptional determination and understanding. We don't understand heavenly calculations, but from several cases known to me, and he prefers I not elaborate, even great rabbis have assured me that his merits are many," Zohar told me. The two maintain good contact, and Zohar has even visited his brother in his office at the organization's headquarters.
Without noise and fanfare
"David Barnea is a good execution man," diagnoses Yossi Melman, the veteran intelligence and security affairs analyst and author of ten books on these subjects. "He doesn't have the sparks of Yossi Cohen, the bastard cunning of Meir Dagan, or the seriousness and depth of Tamir Pardo. If I had to define him briefly, I'd say he's a good field man, a good operator, and very target-focused. A determined person who knows how to ignore background noise and overcome side mines he sometimes encounters. They loved him in the organization, and he quickly began advancing."
Barnea grew up in the Tzomet division, the unit responsible for operating Mossad agents worldwide. Most of his career he served as a case officer, responsible for recruiting and managing agents. These are foreign civilians who are recruited and operated by Mossad, and in some cases serve as "turned agents" – those who don't know for which organization they're working. In Tzomet, Barnea served under the command of Yossi Cohen. In 2003, the two even won Israel's Security Prize for an operation that remains classified to this day. Barnea's path to the top was similar to Cohen's, alongside deep character differences between them.
Former Mossad senior David Meidan knew Barnea when his Mossad career was still in its infancy. Meidan served as head of the Tevel division, responsible for maintaining intelligence and diplomatic relations on behalf of the organization. "Already then they saw that David is someone who comes to work without noise and fanfare. Speaks little, is precise in details, industrious, diligent, very concentrated and focused. His quietness radiates reliability," Meidan describes. "He's a principled person, a family man. At his core, he's shy, modest in his lifestyle, someone who would distance himself from confrontations, gossip, and purposeless conversations. His appearance might be deceiving," Meidan adds. "There's stubbornness in him, and if necessary, he knows how to make difficult personal decisions."
After a period serving as a case officer abroad, Barnea was appointed head of a station in Europe. From there, he moved to serve as deputy head of the Neviot unit, responsible for gathering intelligence through electronic means and handling surveillance, penetrations, observations, and the placement of listening devices, among other tasks. After about two and a half years in the position, in 2013, Barnea returned to the Tzomet division, this time as head of the unit. He dedicated most of his time in this role to dealing with the Iranian threat. As head of Tzomet, he was involved in planning and executing the theft of Iran's nuclear archive in 2018, and during his tenure, the organization won four Israel Security Prizes as well as commendations.
In 2019, his longtime commander, Yossi Cohen, appointed him as his deputy. In this role, Barnea was responsible for overseeing the division of special operations, which included planning assassinations. When Cohen was required to recommend candidates to replace him, he presented the names of Barnea, then his deputy, alongside that of his previous deputy, Ehud Lavi. Lavi was then on sabbatical, and some believe this decision cost him the position. In December 2020, Netanyahu announced David Barnea as the next Mossad chief.
Y., a former senior Mossad official who worked under Barnea for a long period, says: "He has an unusual work ethic; he's capable of dealing with long hours on a large number of tasks simultaneously. He's like a machine."
Former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy, who today serves as president of the organization's retirees association, remembers Barnea's conduct favorably from various periods. "In 2000, when I was Mossad chief, we had brain drain," Halevy recounts. "The head of one of our European stations also decided to leave suddenly. His departure created a major crisis at the station. I flew there to resolve the crisis and spent many hours with our people, including David. He took responsibility and helped calm the situation, and together we weathered the crisis."
"Two years ago, ahead of marking fifty years since the Yom Kippur War, David invited me and additional figures who worked at Mossad in the past and participated in the war to a ceremony where he thanked us for our contribution and awarded us an honored certificate. We didn't expect such a thing, and I appreciated the fact that it was important to him to express gratitude to people who contributed. He's very humane," Halevy concludes.
Alongside these praises, some paint a slightly different picture. M., a former senior Mossad official, says about Barnea: "David is less daring compared to previous Mossad chiefs; he's a rather boring guy, doesn't have many friends. He was intelligent, energetic, patriotic, and good at what he did, but there were better ones than him."
Intelligence in a transparent world
Alongside the IDF, Mossad is perhaps the brand most identified worldwide with Israel, more than cyber, cherry tomatoes, or Gal Gadot. The daring operations, sophistication, creativity, and coolness have made Mossad one of the most esteemed and famous intelligence agencies in the world, perhaps one of the most threatening. Mossad is exceptional not only in its quality but also in its size. According to global estimates, the organization directly employs over 7,000 employees, making it the largest intelligence body outside the US, China, and Russia, roughly twice the size of the British intelligence agency MI6. "Mossad has countless position holders," notes Melman. "They once even advertised that they were looking for a tailor."
On June 1, 2021, Barnea began serving in his position as Mossad chief amid an escalation in the ongoing confrontation with Iran. Six months earlier, in November 2020, the head of Iran's nuclear program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was eliminated in an assassination near Tehran. In April 2021, a cyber attack was carried out at the Natanz nuclear facility. Israel didn't take responsibility in either case, but Iran pointed the finger at it. On June 19, 2021, just two and a half weeks after Barnea took command, the hardliner Ebrahim Raisi was elected president of Iran, an appointment that raised additional concerns in Jerusalem.
According to one version presented in the book "Mossad in Tehran" by Yonah Jeremy Bob and Ilan Evyatar, Naftali Bennett, as prime minister, pushed Mossad and Barnea to show greater creativity and adopt a more aggressive approach toward Iran. According to an opposite version, "not only is Barnea endowed with a sufficiently developed aggressive instinct, but he was actually the one who pressured Bennett to show greater boldness."
Either way, in Barnea's first months in office, Mossad continued the offensive line from the end of Yossi Cohen's period. In July 2021, a cyber attack was carried out against Iran's transportation system, and in October, electricity was shut down at all 4,300 gas stations in the Islamic Republic. Again, Israel didn't take responsibility for the attacks. According to the authors of "Mossad in Tehran," "the match between Bennett and Barnea gave birth to one of the most intensive periods ever of Israeli operations against Iran, aimed at reshaping the strategic status of the nuclear program."
New operating methods
The elimination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in January 2010 on Dubai soil, in an operation attributed to Israel, became an event that dramatically influenced the entire intelligence world. The assassination of the Hamas senior while staying at a hotel proceeded smoothly, and authorities caught no member of the elimination team, but it presented intelligence personnel with a challenging new reality: the proliferation of cameras everywhere, combined with digital databases, made the world transparent.
Mossad chief Meir Dagan, at the time, understood that a way needed to be found to carry out operations abroad and obtain information while minimizing risk to Israeli agents. Already during his tenure, the organization began relying more on operations by foreign agents. Incidentally, contrary to widespread claims globally, Mossad maintains a clear and rigid line of avoiding using Jews in the diaspora to avoid endangering them.
Toward the end of the previous decade, the challenge multiplied dozens of times with the widespread adoption of biometric identification technology at airports worldwide, and subsequently in the broader public sphere. This technology enables identifying a person anywhere he is located, even within a crowd. Countries even share this information among themselves, so that details of a person who landed in Paris are available to officials in Brussels. In such a world, sending an Israeli fighter on an operation outside the country's borders became an almost impossible mission.
Former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen significantly expanded the line Dagan began in relying on foreign agents, including operations that went beyond obtaining information. An additional avenue was expanding the use of innovative technological solutions that enabled achieving remotely what previously required operations beyond lines. The move that began with Dagan and expanded under Cohen reached its peak under Barnea.
Fear of abandonment
The achievements on the international arena were impressive, but underneath the surface, troubles were brewing from within. In January 2022, the commander of Mossad's Caesarea division and his deputy announced their retirement from the organization due to professional disagreements with Barnea. This was an earthquake within Mossad, as the Caesarea division is the flagship of special operations in the agency, which also includes the assassination unit Kidon. Together with the five seniors, several mid-level employees also left. The changes Barnea made in the methods of operating agents, and transferring a larger volume of Mossad activity to a kind of outsourcing, were perceived as a real reform. The departure of the prestigious division's people was attributed to this move.
Two months earlier, in November 2021, three additional senior Mossad officials announced their retirement – the head of the technology division, the head of the counterterrorism division, and the head of the Tzomet division. The reform might have had a part in the matter, but their departure was attributed specifically to an organizational and technical change Barnea made when he ordered the splitting of a certain Mossad division into three. According to D.'s assessment, a former Mossad source, this change creates difficulties for daily operations in those split divisions and harms internal cooperation and efficiency. However, even in his opinion, this isn't a dramatic change.
Y., the former senior Mossad official, suggests seeing things in proportion. "There wasn't a wave of departures," he determines. "There were those who weren't satisfied with David's decisions, people who were stuck in conventions. He knew what he wanted and where he wanted to take Mossad, and whoever decided to leave because of this – let them leave, it's not to David's detriment. At the time, it was still possible to argue whether he was right in the changes he brought, but today this has already proven itself. By the way, there were already groups of seniors who left under strong previous Mossad chiefs. The most extensive wave of departures I know was under one of the greatest among them, Meir Dagan."
M. sees things in a different light and believes the background to the departures was personal considerations on Barnea's part. "Many seniors left, division heads, including basically all the natural candidates for heading the organization," he says. "These are people David decided he didn't want, and in their place, he promoted much less capable elements. He brought back all sorts of weirdos from retirement, people who retired because they weren't suitable for promotion, and today fill central positions contrary to the opinion of very senior elements in the system. This isn't reform; this is a coup, a dictatorship."
According to M., additional seniors have recently left Mossad, including one person whom Barnea himself appointed.
Are you concerned about the Mossad's future?
"Certainly. The Office (as Mossad personnel refer to it) lost much of its diversity and became one-dimensional. The two that Barnea is expected to recommend as his replacements for heading the organization worry me greatly. These are people who would never have reached such positions under other Mossad chiefs. This is doubly concerning because Military Intelligence also failed to update its work plans. I know that Military Intelligence is aware of the issue, and a few months ago, there was a discussion there dealing with this."
Melman, for his part, refuses to get excited: "Always when dismantling a unit, there are people who aren't satisfied, and he, too, had those who weren't satisfied. This is the nature of a dynamic organization that must adapt to changing reality. New units were established and others were split to adapt them to changed circumstances."
Closing the circle
On September 7, 2023, exactly one month before Hamas's attack, Mossad published in an unprecedented manner a file of documents and investigations from the archive relating to the Yom Kippur War, in a book titled "Once When It Will Be Permitted to Tell..." At the launch event, Barnea said: "We must not underestimate the enemy and his capabilities. We feel the powerful intelligence capabilities, but we must not fall into conceptualization; the order of the hour is humility."
Unlike figures who led the IDF and Shin Bet during the massacre, who have since ended their tenure, Mossad and its leader aren't perceived by the public as bearing responsibility for October 7th. There's considerable justice in this, as the Gaza Strip wasn't under their responsibility but under the General Security Service. However, they're also not completely free of responsibility. Mossad also maintains a prestigious research division that didn't provide assessments regarding an expected attack and maintains cooperation with intelligence organizations in Arab countries, thus exposing itself to relevant materials. The organization's responsibility for the intelligence failure is also related to the fact that it operates against Hamas personnel abroad and missed the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars from Iran to Hamas, as revealed in documents captured in the Strip.
However, Mossad's deepest involvement regarding Gaza was in the flow of funds from Qatar to Hamas, which continued until October 2023. Melman: "As long as Israel is a democratic state, the political echelon determines, but the security establishment has great influence on the decision-making process, and the Mossad chief has an important role in shaping government policy. The criticism of Barnea is that he didn't oppose, or at least didn't sufficiently voice his opinion, on certain issues, such as transferring funds from Qatar, setting national priorities, and vital intelligence requirements. Additionally, during the war, he also failed to express his opinion on the issue of hostages. Bottom line, Mossad has some responsibility for October 7th, but it's marginal."
The pager operation marked a moment of closing the circle for Barnea: under his leadership, Mossad delivered a crushing blow to a threatening entity that had been feared for years, and restored to Israel the deterrence and security-intelligence prestige lost on October 7th. "The pager operation is the most successful operation in the history of intelligence organizations worldwide," D. determines.
The operation that began in the previous decade matured into action under Barnea. According to reports, the decision to time the attack came after suspicions arose within Hezbollah, and the organization began checking the devices. However, in an interview with the "Hayeda" podcast, A., presented as a former head of Mossad's intelligence division, claimed that Mossad in general and Barnea in particular pushed to act against Hezbollah, including exploding the pagers, regardless of these circumstances.
After the success of the pager operation, Barnea used Mossad's capabilities in complex coordination and multi-layered intelligence activation – human, electronic, and visual – to lead additional reality-changing moves, primarily the elimination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. As part of the operation, Mossad agents operated in the heart of Beirut to obtain the required intelligence and even planted devices that enabled the elimination of Nasrallah's secret bunker. The agency's part in the operation included components reflecting Barnea's management concept: broad vision, precise timing, and the ability to combine operations with symbolic value with those having strategic value. The ability to operate dozens of foreign agents within Iran's borders, alongside the use of innovative technology, also relied heavily on the changes Barnea made upon assuming his position. Naturally, elements of the Iran attack were laid during Cohen's period and even before, yet at the moment of truth, Barnea's professional concept proved itself.
"Before the changes David made, Mossad wouldn't have been able to carry out so many operations simultaneously," believes Y. "Mossad reached its peak glory. What we saw from Mossad after October 7th is a product of the structural changes he led. This is what enabled carrying out something like seven operations in Iran on the first night." According to reports, the agency operated over one hundred agents in Iran with optimal coordination.
"Mossad's heavy achievements in the war also came thanks to David's capabilities and personality; his functioning is most impressive," agrees Efraim Halevy. "David's success was expected for me; he's an excellent planner and excellent executor," joins David Meidan.
"David sharpened what his predecessors began, refined and developed it," says Melman. "Ultimately, he brought Mossad to this achievement, and we're talking about a most impressive operation that required determination, mission adherence, and worthy planning. Actually, the lion's share of Mossad activity in Iran was on the first night and in the days preceding it, because this required extensive preparations and everything was timed and precise. It's not simple to command an operation like Operation Rising Lion, but Barnea is very cool-headed in operational actions."
A point that came up in conversations I held with two different sources was the great importance Barnea assigns to public relations and receiving credit for the organization's achievements, including through speeches he occasionally gives. Some claimed that even publishing videos from Iran with Mossad's logo – an exceptional act compared to the standard operating method of intelligence bodies in general and Mossad in particular – was a PR action, though this can also be seen as a capability display meant to deter the enemy and damage its morale. After Operation Rising Lion, claims even arose that Mossad was trying to "steal credit from the IDF."
"Mossad and the IDF worked in close cooperation in Operation Rising Lion. While there's always a bit of ego in the way, they work well together," says Melman. "The 'credit war' between the IDF and Mossad, as this matter is framed in some media outlets, wasn't really serious; it was inflated for rating considerations and desire to create interest."
M., however, refuses to be impressed by Barnea's overall functioning, even given the operational achievements. In his eyes, Barnea receives excessive credit for Mossad's achievements, as the infrastructure for these achievements didn't stem from his initiative. He defines the first two years of his tenure as "very bad." According to him, achievements in various arenas were accomplished despite the changes Barnea led in the organization.
Not a yes-man
The position of Mossad chief entails close collaboration with the prime minister and the political establishment. Barnea's relations with Netanyahu are considered good, unlike his colleagues heading other security bodies. "Unlike Ronen Bar and Herzi Halevi, Barnea was appointed by Netanyahu, and Netanyahu's view of people he didn't appoint himself is more suspicious," says Ariel Kahana, Israel Hayom's political analyst. "He understands the political game and is careful not to get between the political echelon's intentions. There's understanding between him and Netanyahu, and Barnea knows Netanyahu well, understanding what to do and what not to do when working with him. He praised Netanyahu publicly, for example, on the decisions he made in the pager operation and the Iran attack, and Netanyahu liked this. Unlike Ronen Bar, David Barnea isn't confrontational, and their relationship is completely different."
Some describe Barnea as a kind of yes-man to Netanyahu. Is this the case in your opinion?
"No, and the disagreement between them over the Qatar attack isn't the only example. Mossad is Netanyahu's baby, and not everything happening between them is perfect – I know it isn't – but overall the joint work is good and produces results, and Barnea does his work in a businesslike and proper manner."
Contrary to talk about a rift between the prime minister and Mossad chief around the Qatar attack that Barnea opposed, Kahana believes this incident actually shows how good relations are between the two: "Netanyahu allowed Mossad not to carry out its part in the attack and transferred it to Shin Bet. He didn't force Barnea to do it, despite being able to do so. Barnea opposed decisively, and Netanyahu went along with him. Whoever works with Qatar in its capacity as mediator is Mossad, and it might have been easier for Netanyahu to let Mossad relinquish its involvement in the attack and transfer its role to Shin Bet, so the Qataris would continue working with it. But this is just my speculation."
How much influence does Barnea have on decisions made in the cabinet?
"He has influence, especially in cases of disagreement within the system. He brings a more hawkish approach, certainly compared to Ronen Bar and Herzi Halevi. There were also junctions where Netanyahu leaned on his position to establish his opinion."
M. describes a different picture, where Barnea shows weakness toward the political echelon and doesn't know how to stand his ground. He also claims that "counterparts" (the code name in Mossad for international intelligence organizations it works with) aren't impressed by Barnea. In this context, Melman is actually impressed that Barnea managed to improve relations with the CIA, American intelligence agency, "despite work relations being good on a regular basis," he clarifies.
Government Secretary Yossi Fox, who by virtue of his position works directly with the Mossad chief, says: "David Barnea is the best Mossad chief Israel has ever had. Brave, creative, modest, doesn't belong to conceptualization, and understands the importance of trust and full coordination with the prime minister, especially in a period where he led strategic change in the Middle East." A political source I spoke with conveyed similar sentiments: "The Mossad chief is determined and offensive. In Operation 'Rising Lion,' we saw how his boldness and planning come to expression in the field."
In days when Mossad operates at an almost non-stop pace – from eliminating seniors in Iran, through thwarting arms smuggling in Syria and Lebanon, destroying economic infrastructure in Yemen, and building quiet alliances with Arab countries – David Barnea remains a generally beloved figure, but not free from criticism. His critics claim he avoids pushing the political echelon toward long-term strategy and settles for the status of execution contractor. On the other hand, some view an advantage in distancing the Mossad from the political sphere and limiting its involvement to a professional level only.
Since October 2023, Barnea has carried on his shoulders not only Mossad's missions but also public trust in the security establishment. In many ways, restoring Israelis' sense of security is the most difficult test. Barnea is currently in his fifth and perhaps final year in office, and Mossad, under his leadership, continues recording achievements. Alongside these achievements, his future legacy will also be determined by whether he succeeds in shaping a flexible, innovative, and resilient Mossad for the long term, and whether he will leave for those coming after him an infrastructure similar to what his predecessors left him.
