Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday appointed his military secretary, major general Roman Gofman, a senior officer with no intelligence background, as the next director of the Mossad.Netanyahu’s office said Gofman will take over from current Mossad chief David Barnea, whose five-year term ends in June 2026.“Gofman is a highly distinguished officer,” stated Netanyahu’s office, as cited by the Times of Israel. “His appointment as the prime minister’s military secretary in the midst of the war… proved that he possesses exceptional professional capabilities, from his rapid entry into the role to his immediate and significant involvement in the seven arenas of the war.”After naming David Zini, a military figure from Israel’s religious Zionist movement, to lead the Shin Bet domestic security agency, Netanyahu has once again chosen someone aligned with his nationalist outlook to head one of Israel’s key security institutions.“The prime minister believes that Maj Gen Gofman is the most qualified and suitable candidate to serve as Mossad director and wishes him great success in this important role,” the PMO added. Netanyahu said Gofman, who has never served in the Mossad, has nonetheless worked closely with the agency and other defense bodies in his role as military secretary.
Who is Roman Hoffman?
Born in Belarus in 1976, Gofman moved to Israel at the age of 14 and joined the army’s armored corps in 1995, beginning a long military career. Although he does not wear a yarmulke like practicing religious Jews, Gofman studied at the Ely yeshiva, a Jewish religious school in a West Bank settlement known for its right-wing religious Zionist leanings, as cited by AFP.In 2020, Gofman was appointed commander of the 210th “Bashan” Regional Division, which oversees Israel’s border with Syria. During his tenure, he authorized an arrangement in which intelligence officers provided classified information to Israeli teenager Ori Elmakayes for an unsanctioned social media influence campaign, a move that later drew significant criticism, as reported by the Times of Israel. At the onset of the Gaza war following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks, he was serving as commander of the national infantry training centre.He was seriously wounded that day in clashes with Hamas militants in the southern city of Sderot, near the Gaza border.Gofman later joined the prime minister’s office in April 2024.Gofman is regarded as close to Netanyahu, having served as his military secretary for nearly two years. In that role, he traveled on the prime minister’s behalf for various assignments and supervised the execution of Netanyahu’s directives within the IDF.The Mossad, regarded as one of the world’s leading intelligence agencies, was not implicated in the intelligence failures surrounding the October 7 attacks, as the Palestinians have traditionally been outside its remit. In contrast, the heads of the Shin Bet and Aman (military intelligence) resigned after accepting responsibility for the security lapse.
