Former Mossad chief David Barnea has revealed new details about Israel’s September 2024 pager attacks against Hezbollah, describing the tense moments before thousands of devices exploded across Lebanon, the precautions taken to limit civilian casualties and the operation’s intended psychological impact on the Iran-backed group.

Speaking at the Priority Summit conference last week, Barnea recounted how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked him what would happen if the operation failed just 10 minutes before the devices were due to detonate. He also described hundreds of tests conducted ahead of the attacks and said he had repeatedly demanded that the amount of explosives in the pagers be reduced.

The pager explosions, followed a day later by blasts involving Hezbollah’s walkie-talkies, killed and wounded people across Lebanon and severely disrupted the group’s communications network.

Barnea said the operation was designed to inflict physical damage on Hezbollah, undermine its morale and leave its members uncertain about the security of their equipment. He also claimed that thousands of people in the group’s stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs were living with amputations as a result of the attacks.

Netanyahu asked what would happen if the operation failed

Barnea said he was in an underground military command center at 3:20 p.m. on the day of the pager operation, alongside Netanyahu, the defense minister, the Israeli military’s chief of staff and the head of Military Intelligence.

The devices were scheduled to explode at 3:30 p.m.

“The prime minister turns to me and says, ‘Tell me, what happens if it doesn’t work?’” Barnea recalled.

He said he had not seriously considered that possibility until Netanyahu raised it.

“My heart is pounding, and I tell him, ‘There’s no such possibility. Everything is fine,’” he said. “After that, I had 10 whole minutes of thinking, ‘What a stupid thing I just said.’”

When the designated time arrived, the officials in the room turned toward Barnea, expecting immediate confirmation that the operation had succeeded.

But the results could not be established instantly, he said.

“What did you expect to hear, a boom? It doesn’t work that way,” Barnea recalled telling them. “We’ll hear about it in half an hour, maybe, and even then we’ll start hearing about it on the news.”

The officials continued pressing him for updates, but he had no immediate way to reassure them, he said. The first reports eventually came through Mossad intelligence sources, followed by news coverage, allowing him to confirm that the operation had succeeded.

Hundreds of tests and restrictions on explosives

Barnea said the Mossad conducted hundreds of experiments before the pager attacks, using mannequins filled with materials designed to simulate the human body.

He said he repeatedly called for the amount of explosives placed inside the devices to be reduced to limit the risk of harming people near the intended targets.

“Every time I watched a test, I would say, ‘Reduce the amount of explosives,’” he said.

Barnea said he considered the possibility of killing relatives of Hezbollah operatives unacceptable.

“I, on behalf of the State of Israel, cannot accept the possibility that the daughter of a Hezbollah terrorist, or his son, or his wife, would be harmed because we want to eliminate him,” he said.

Members of the planning team repeatedly warned him that his restrictions would undermine the operation’s effectiveness, he said.

“They kept telling me I was making the operation ineffective,” Barnea recalled. “I told them, ‘We have red lines.’”

He argued that the high number of injuries relative to fatalities was consistent with the operation’s intended effects.

“It’s true that not all of them die, and that has a very significant advantage,” he said.

Barnea claimed that 4,500 people with missing limbs were living in Dahieh, Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs, and described their injuries as a lasting warning to the group.

“There are 4,500 people walking around Dahieh missing limbs, and they are the best reminder I can imagine of what happens to a Hezbollah terrorist who tries to harm the citizens of the State of Israel,” he said.

The figure could not be independently verified.

Israel sought to undermine Hezbollah’s morale

Barnea identified three main effects that Israel sought to achieve through the operation.

The first was the physical harm inflicted on Hezbollah operatives. The second was the damage to the group’s morale and its ability to operate as a fighting force.

“Anyone who has commanded people in the military understands that when morale is broken, you have no one to work with,” he said.

The third was to instill fear and uncertainty, particularly after Hezbollah’s walkie-talkies exploded the following day.

Asked whether Israel had prepared a third operation involving compromised devices, Barnea declined to answer, suggesting that uncertainty over the possibility was itself strategically valuable.

“I can’t answer that, but the very question going through your minds right now is still going through theirs,” he said.

He compared the psychological effect to the uncertainty faced by Japan’s leadership after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

“After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese leadership said, ‘Wait, maybe the Americans have a third bomb, and maybe a fourth and fifth, so perhaps we should surrender,’” Barnea said.

“After the first bomb, you think maybe that was the only one. After the second, you’re not sure whether there’s a third.”

Mossad used public video to shield agents inside Iran

Barnea also disclosed details about Israel’s June 2025 military campaign against Iranian nuclear and military targets, known as Operation Rising Lion, saying the Mossad deliberately released a video showing its operatives conducting missions inside Iran on the operation’s opening morning.

The video prominently displayed the intelligence agency’s insignia. Barnea said its purpose was not simply to publicize Israel’s activities but to overwhelm Iranian security services with potential suspects, making it harder for them to identify actual Israeli agents.

“One of the reasons we immediately released an official video on the morning of Operation Rising Lion, with the Mossad logo, was to protect the agents who were there,” he said.

“We wanted to make sure they arrested so many people in Iran that they wouldn’t be able to separate the wheat from the chaff and would eventually release everyone. Incidentally, that is exactly what happened.”

Barnea claimed that Iranian authorities arrested 21,000 people on the second day of the fighting.

Even if some genuine Israeli agents were among those detained, he said, the authorities would eventually have to release them because they could not distinguish them from the wider group of suspects.

“And in the end, they released everyone,” he said.

The figures and Barnea’s account of the arrests and subsequent releases could not be independently verified.

He also questioned Iran’s claims that some people arrested or executed for allegedly working with Israeli intelligence were Mossad agents.

“Some of the people being hanged in Iran on accusations of being Mossad agents — I have to ask who they are,” he said. “They tell me, ‘Listen, we don’t know either.’”

Barnea described some of those executed as innocent people who had never worked for the Mossad or, probably, any other intelligence agency.

He claimed that 99.9% of Mossad agents had never been exposed and said some operatives involved in the Iran campaign remained in Tehran.

“I can’t tell you they’re here with us, but they’re there in Tehran, still living their good lives, knowing in their hearts that they served a noble purpose — not for the State of Israel, but for themselves,” he said.

Barnea’s account of the Iran operation also left out some details reported elsewhere. The Jerusalem Post, reporting on the same remarks, said Mossad agents on the ground had also helped carry out assassinations, in addition to operations against military and nuclear targets.

Agents were deployed weeks before Israel struck Iran

Barnea said preparations for Operation Rising Lion were conducted under extraordinary secrecy, with even Israeli fighter pilots unaware of their impending missions when they were summoned to their squadrons.

“Nobody in the world knew we were going to attack in Operation Rising Lion,” he said. “And to tell the truth, even our pilots didn’t know they were going to attack when they were called to their squadrons.”

By contrast, dozens of Mossad operatives had been deployed inside Iran weeks before the campaign began, fully aware of their assignments, he said.

“But many dozens of our agents were dispatched knowing they were going to carry out an operation, weeks before it began,” Barnea said. “And they kept that secret entirely to themselves, in their hearts.”

He said he personally approved every operative assigned to the mission, meeting them individually and assessing whether they could be trusted to maintain secrecy.

“Every one of those agents had to receive the green check mark that I personally had to give each one,” he said. “I meet them, I talk to them, I hug them, I encourage them, and I have to trust them.”

The responsibility, he added, went beyond ensuring the mission’s success.

“You have to sign off that this secret won’t leak,” he said. “When I say I sign off on each one, I’m staking my head on it.”

Barnea says Iran’s 2024 attacks changed Israel’s calculations

Barnea also acknowledged that Israel had been deterred by Iran’s military capabilities before Tehran launched two major direct attacks against Israel in April and October 2024.

The attacks, which involved waves of missiles and drones, marked a major escalation in the longstanding confrontation between the two countries.

Barnea described them as “two historic strategic mistakes” by Iran, arguing that they exposed military capabilities that Israel had previously regarded with considerable uncertainty.

“We have to tell the truth. Before those attacks, the State of Israel — we — were deterred,” he said.

He explained that Israeli officials had not been certain how effective Iran’s long-range precision missiles would be or whether Israeli and U.S. air defense systems could withstand a large-scale assault.

The attacks helped resolve some of those uncertainties and changed Israel’s assessment of the Iranian threat, Barnea suggested.