Mossad operatives visited Iran’s Fordow nuclear site ‘many times', former chief says

Former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen said Tuesday that Israeli intelligence operatives visited Iran’s underground Fordow nuclear facility on multiple occasions as part of efforts to gather intelligence and understand the site.

Speaking at the Galilee Conference, Cohen revealed that Mossad personnel had entered or toured the facility “many times” in order to study its layout and activities.

“We toured the nuclear site in Fordow, Iran, many times to understand the site,” Cohen said.

He also welcomed the US military strike on the facility, describing the destruction of Fordow as the fulfillment of a long-held objective.

“The bombing of the site by the Americans, it was the fulfillment of all my dreams,” Cohen said.

However, Cohen stressed that Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% does not necessarily mean the country is on the verge of producing a nuclear weapon.

“60 percent enriched uranium is still far from a bomb,” he said.

Cohen’s comments shed further light on Israel’s long-running intelligence campaign against Iran’s nuclear program. In 2018, Prime Minister Netanyahu publicly revealed that the Mossad had obtained a large archive of documents from inside Iran detailing the country’s nuclear activities.

At the time, Netanyahu said the archive contained approximately 55,000 pages and another 55,000 files stored on 183 disks, providing what Israel described as extensive evidence about Iran’s nuclear program.

The remarks also come after the United States carried out strikes against Iran’s key nuclear facilities on June 22, 2025. The operation targeted the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan facilities, marking a major escalation in efforts to damage Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

According to reports at the time, nine U.S. B-2 Spirit stealth bombers departed Whiteman Air Force Base with their transponders turned off. The aircraft carried powerful bunker-busting weapons designed to penetrate heavily fortified underground facilities.

Twelve bombs were dropped on Fordow, while additional strikes targeted Natanz. The US also launched 30 Tomahawk cruise missiles against targets associated with the nuclear program at Natanz and Isfahan.

Reports indicated that the United States and Israel had spent roughly a year preparing and training for a potential strike.

Discussions reportedly began during the Biden administration amid concerns that Iran could move rapidly toward developing a nuclear weapon. Ultimately, however, the Biden administration did not determine that Iran had begun such a final dash toward a bomb, and the option was not pursued at that time.