JERUSALEM, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday decided to appoint his current military secretary, Roman Gofman, as the next head of the Mossad spy agency.
Gofman is set to succeed current Mossad chief David Barnea, whose five-year term ends in June 2026, Netanyahu's office said in a statement.
Gofman has held several senior military positions before being appointed as Netanyahu's military secretary in May 2024. He was severely wounded during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that triggered the Israeli onslaught on Gaza.
The prime minister's office said Gofman "has demonstrated creativity, initiative, ingenuity, deep understanding of the enemy, absolute discretion and strict confidentiality."
The appointment drew criticism. Israel's state-owned Kan TV quoted anonymous current and former senior Mossad officials as saying that Gofman "lacks an intelligence background, has no organizational management experience and has no expertise in the Mossad's core areas of activity."
Last year, Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported that while serving as commander of the army's 210th Division, Gofman approved the recruitment of a 17-year-old boy to run an unauthorized influence operation. The youth was arrested by the Shin Bet internal security agency in May 2022 and later charged with publishing classified information online. He was held for about a year and a half -- including roughly two months in isolation -- until the charges were dropped after it emerged he had acted under military direction. ■
