By SCM International Desk I Tuesday, August 11, 2026
JERUSALEM — In a striking revelation regarding the shadowy, decades-long intelligence war between Israel and Iran, the former head of Israel’s spy agency claimed on Tuesday that intelligence operatives repeatedly “toured” Iran’s heavily fortified, underground Fordow nuclear facility.
Speaking at the annual Galilee Conference in Safed, Yossi Cohen, who served as Director of the Mossad from 2016 to 2021, stated that intelligence personnel under his command had studied the subterranean complex extensively.
“We walked around the Fordow nuclear site many times in order to understand the site,” Mr. Cohen told the audience.
Mr. Cohen did not specify the exact timeline of the operations or whether “walking around” implied the physical presence of covert foreign operatives deep inside one of Tehran’s most protected military installations, or if it referred to advanced, real-time remote monitoring, physical surveillance through local intelligence assets, or a combination of techniques.
Whatever the precise mechanics of the surveillance, Mr. Cohen left no doubt about his emotional response when American military forces struck the facility. Referring to the deep-penetration U.S. airstrikes against the facility, Mr. Cohen called the attack “the fulfillment of all my dreams”.
In a surprising pivot, Mr. Cohen also pushed back against heightened international panic over Iran’s growing stockpile of near-weapons-grade nuclear material. While Western diplomats and arms-control monitors have sounded the alarm over Tehran’s accumulation of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity, the former spy chief offered a more reserved evaluation.
“Uranium enriched to 60 percent is still far from a bomb,” Mr. Cohen asserted.
The remark appeared to challenge broader warnings by nuclear proliferation experts and Western intelligence services, who argue that enriching uranium from 60 percent purity to the 90 percent purity needed for a nuclear warhead requires only a brief technical jump—potentially a matter of days or weeks if Iran were to commit to a rapid weaponization effort. Mr. Cohen’s stance suggests that while the fissile material exists, the complex engineering required to build a miniaturized, deliverable weapon remains a significant hurdle.
The Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant has long been the central flashpoint in the conflict surrounding Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Built deep inside a mountain near the holy city of Qom, the facility was designed to withstand conventional aerial bombardment, shielded by dozens of meters of solid rock and reinforced concrete.
For more than two decades, the Mossad has engaged in a covert campaign to delay and disrupt Iran’s nuclear program. Operations attributed to Israeli intelligence include the Stuxnet cyberattack, which sabotaged centrifuges at the Natanz facility, the remote assassination of top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, and the daring 2018 heist of Iran’s secret nuclear archive from a warehouse in Tehran—an operation overseen directly by Mr. Cohen.
The former Mossad chief’s comments come against the backdrop of significant military action. Following escalating regional tensions, U.S. forces deployed strategic B-2 stealth bombers and heavy bunker-buster munitions against Fordow and other key sites including Natanz and Isfahan. The strikes aimed to severely disable the deeply buried centrifuge halls.
While Iranian authorities claimed that much of the sensitive equipment had been relocated prior to the U.S. strikes and that damages were contained, international intelligence agencies continue to assess the true extent of the structural destruction beneath the mountain.
For intelligence scholars, Mr. Cohen’s disclosure offers rare, public confirmation of just how thoroughly Western and Israeli intelligence services had compromised Iran’s security apparatus.
Whether physical or technological, Israel’s deep familiarity with the Fordow complex played a crucial role in laying the groundwork for the ultimate military effort to neutralize it.