Israel's Netanyahu picks military secretary Roman Gofman as new Mossad chief

Israeli undercoat government minister Benjamin Netanyahu on th picked his war machine secretarial assistant, a general with no background in intelligence, as the next head of the country's foreign intelligence agency Mossad.

In a statement, Netanyahu's office announced the decision to appoint Major General Roman Gofman as head of the spy agency, saying he would replace current Mossad chief David Barnea, whose five-year term ends in June 2026.

Gofman was born in Belarus in 1976 and moved to Israel aged 14. He joined the military's armoured corps in 1995 and pursued a long army career.

At the start of the Gaza war triggered by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Gofman was a commander of the national infantry training centre.

He was seriously wounded on October 7 in clashes with Hamas militants in Sderot, a city in southern Israel near the Gaza border.

Gofman later joined Netanyahu's office cabinet in April 2024.

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After appointing a member of the military from Israel's religious Zionist movement, David Zini, as head of the Shin Bet domestic security agency, Netanyahu again appointed someone close to his nationalist ideas to head one of Israel's main agencies.

Though he does not wear a yarmulke as practicing religious Jews do, he studied at the Ely yeshiva, a Jewish religious school located in a settlement of the occupied West Bank and known for its right-wing religious Zionist position.

Like Zini, Gofman did not come from the agency he is set to head, though his appointment did not bring about the political controversy that followed the Shin Bet chief's nomination.

Uri Misgav, a columnist for prominent left-wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz, was one of the few voices to criticise the appointment, calling Gofman "unfit to head Mossad" due to his lack of experience in intelligence.

As for David Zini, the main factor for Gofman's appointment was his loyalty to Netanyahu, Misgav added.

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"Gofman is an officer of great merit," a statement from Netanyahu's office said, adding that his wartime appointment as the premier's military secretary "proved his exceptional professional capabilities".

Considered one of the best intelligence services in the world, the Mossad did not suffer from the intelligence failure of the October 7 attack because the Palestinian territories have traditionally fallen outside of its field of operation.

But the chiefs of Shin Bet and Aman (military intelligence) agencies resigned after acknowledging their responsibility for the fiasco.

The Mossad distinguished itself in the eyes of Israelis in the ongoing multi-front war since October 7.

It contributed to the killing of the general staff of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in 2024 and that of the Iranian armed forces during the 12-day war launched by Israel against Tehran in June.

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