Roman Gofman was sworn in as the new director of the Mossad intelligence agency on Tuesday, marking an end to the lengthy legal challenges he faced since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his nomination in December 2025.
His swearing-in ceremony in Jerusalem came a day after the High Court of Justice rejected petitions seeking to annul his appointment and allegations that he acted in a manner that violated the required standards of ethical conduct for senior state officials.
Gofman is the 14th director of Mossad, and replaces outgoing chief David Barnea. Prior to his appointment, he was Netanyahu’s military secretary.
Speaking at his swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday, Netanyahu praised Gofman’s ability to “overcome all obstacles,” in an apparent reference to the legal challenges to his appointment, and outlined his mission as the head of the intelligence agency: completing the fight against the threat of the Iranian regime.
“This regime of terror, whose fate is to pass from the world — and we will help it reach that destination — will not again threaten us with nuclear bombs and thousands of deadly ballistic missiles,” Netanyahu said, reiterating similar remarks he gave at Monday night’s farewell ceremony for Barnea.
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“That is my directive,” he said, “that is your mission, Roman.”
Continuing, Netanyahu vowed that “The Mossad will continue to stand at the forefront of our struggle against Iranian aggression… In accordance with the consistent policy we have pursued for years, we will not allow the Iranian regime to turn back the clock. We will not allow it to obtain nuclear weapons, and we will not allow it to threaten our existence.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a farewell ceremony for outgoing Mossad chief David Barnea, June 2, 2026 (Kobi Gideon / GPO)
At a ceremony for Barnea the night before, Netanyahu had declared that “the foundations” of the Iranian regime “have cracked,” leaving it “doomed to fall.”
“The price that Iran has already paid is very heavy. The foundations of this regime of terror in Iran have cracked. It will never return to what it once was, and I tell you — it is doomed to fall,” the premier said, warning that “every enemy plotting harm against Israel” will pay an “extremely heavy” price.
Gofman, in his own remarks on Tuesday, also addressed Iran and the operations Israel has launched against the Islamic Republic and its proxies in recent years — the most recent of which was the offensive launched jointly with the US on February 28 and which is currently in a shaky ceasefire, and promised that Israel’s work in that arena was not yet finished.
“The strategic reversal that we brought about against the Iranian axis” through Israel’s military actions against Tehran and its proxies “has changed the balance of power across the entire region,” he said. “But the task is not yet complete. The heart of the Mossad lies in covert operations against its targets. We will safeguard that mission at all costs.”
Gofman’s entry into the top post in the Mossad means that his prior role of military secretary to the prime minister remains vacant.
Unusually, Netanyahu has not yet announced a successor for Gofman as military secretary, although he was expected to do so soon.
The officer who will take over as military secretary will enter the role without receiving on-the-job training from Gofman, as the latter is likely to be too busy with entering the role of Mossad chief.
There are two main candidates whose names have been brought up as potential successors to Gofman as military secretary: Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram, the commander of the IDF’s Gaza Division, and Brig. Gen. Guy Markizeno, the military secretary to the defense minister.
Incoming Mossad director Maj. Gen. Roman Gofman arrives for a Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee meeting at the Knesset on February 5, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Barnea, who attended Gofman’s swearing-in ceremony, wished his successor luck in his new role, and thanked the intelligence agency’s employees for their work in brief remarks.
“Your excellence is tested precisely at the point where others choose to give up,” he said. “You refuse to give up in the face of challenges. You refuse to back down in the face of a mission.”
Barnea had reportedly opposed Gofman’s appointment.
Roman Gofman (left) takes over the Mossad spy agency from David Barnea (right) at a ceremony with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, June 2, 2026. (Via X).
Tuesday’s ceremony followed a tempestuous legal process centered on a controversial influence campaign carried out by the IDF in 2022, while he was the commander of the 210th “Bashan” Regional Division in the Golan Heights.
Gofman approved the use of then 17-year-old blogger Ori Elmakayes to carry out the Arabic-language influence campaign against Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.
Elmakayes was asked to publish information in his Telegram channel by his handler, referred to as Captain Tzur, since it was read by enemy elements inside Syria.
However, Elmakayes was arrested and interrogated by the Shin Bet, and, so he claims, tortured during the process. He was kept in solitary confinement for two months and under different forms of detention for some 18 months until the charges were eventually dropped, after his lawyers belatedly managed to prove that he had been working with the IDF.
An IDF investigation was conducted in May 2022 into the affair, in which Gofman said he had not known Elmakayes’s identity or the specifics of the operation. The investigation resulted in Gofman receiving a disciplinary note in his record on the grounds that he had not received authorization for the operation through Elmakayes’s Telegram channel.
Elmakayes filed a petition against Gofman’s appointment to lead the Mossad on the grounds that he had failed to alert the law enforcement agencies that he had been working in cooperation with the IDF, constituting a major ethical violation leading to Elmakayes’ prolonged legal ordeal. The Movement for Quality Government also filed a petition accusing Gofman of lying to an IDF investigation over the matter, which it said was also a grave ethical violation.
The court ultimately rejected the petitions in a two-to-one decision on Monday, determining that although there were failures with how Gofman handled the incident at the center of the petitions against him, he did not deliberately mislead an investigation into the affair or “abandon” Elmakayes.
Elmakayes said he accepted the court’s decision not to intervene, and that he believed Gofman would act with greater restraint as a result of the legal battle he waged against his appointment.
Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.
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