In a rare public message Wednesday, the Mossad hailed Israel’s “historic” operation against Iran, declaring that the longstanding Iranian threat was significantly neutralized thanks to the 12-day aerial campaign.
“These are historic days for the people of Israel. The Iranian threat, which has endangered our security for decades, has been significantly neutralized,” the intelligence agency said in a statement, hailing its cooperation with the IDF and accompanying American support for the surprise offensive.
“Israel, thanks to this entire security apparatus, today feels like a different country, a safer country, a braver country that is prepared for the future,” said Mossad chief David Barnea in a video accompanying the written statement.
“Objectives that once seemed imaginary have now been achieved,” he continued, speaking from a Mossad operational command center. “We will continue to keep a watchful eye on all known Iranian projects — we are intimately familiar with them — and we will be there, just as we have been until now.”
He also thanked the US Central Intelligence Agency, whose cooperation “helped make the operation possible.”
The CIA itself meanwhile issued a statement on Wednesday attributed to its director, John Ratcliffe, in which it confirmed “that a body of credible intelligence indicates Iran’s nuclear program has been severely damaged by the recent, targeted strikes.”
“This includes new intelligence from a historically reliable and accurate source/method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years,” the CIA statement added.
The Mossad played a crucial role in Operation Rising Lion, and reportedly enlisted its agents to smuggle attack drones into Iran via trucks, shipping containers and even suitcases.
Mossad agents inside Iran then gathered the equipment and handed it out to teams who prepared the drones for use within the country. Once airstrikes began, the drones took out air defense systems while also hitting surface-to-surface missile launchers aimed at Israel.
In addition, vehicles carrying weapons systems were smuggled into Iran, giving Israeli planes air supremacy and freedom of action within the country’s airspace.
In another statement made Wednesday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir called the operation a definitive success, also divulging that Israeli commando forces operated within Iran during the war.
“After 12 days of unprecedented fighting, I can say that the IDF operated at its best and fully achieved the aims and objectives of the operation,” he said. “According to the assessment of senior officials in the IDF Intelligence Directorate, the damage to the nuclear program is not a localized blow, but a systemic one.”
He claimed that Tehran’s nuclear program “suffered severe, broad, and deep damage and was pushed back by years.”
“We will not allow Iran to produce weapons of mass destruction,” the IDF chief averred, adding that Israel caused significant damage to the Tehran’s missile-launching capabilities, managed to remove hundreds of launchers and significantly delayed Tehran’s force build-up plans.
“We managed to achieve intelligence, technological, and aerial superiority. We reached a level of operational freedom in the skies of Iran and in every location we chose to act in,” Zamir said.
Indispensable to these achievements were the air and ground commando forces that “operated covertly deep in enemy territory and carried out operations that granted us operational freedom of action,” he continued.
It is unclear if Zamir was referring to Mossad commandos who, at the start of the operation, carried out actions to neutralize Iranian air defenses and ballistic missiles, or whether he is revealing for the first time actions by IDF commandos.
The IDF declined to clarify when asked by The Times of Israel.
The surprise operation — which came to a close Tuesday as a US-brokered ceasefire took hold — began June 13, when Israel struck Iran overnight with the aim of thwarting its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Israeli forces targeted top military leaders, nuclear scientists, uranium enrichment sites and ballistic missile programs in the country in an effort to dismantle the “existential threat” posed by the Islamic Republic.
Iran responded by launching over 550 ballistic missiles and around 1,000 drones at Israel, killing 28 people and wounding thousands, according to health officials. The missiles hit apartment buildings, a university and a hospital, as well as critical infrastructure sites, causing heavy damage.