Mossad chief reveals repeated infiltrations at Iran’s Fordow nuclear site

Yossi Cohen, the former director of Mossad, told an audience at the Galilee Conference on August 11 that Israeli operatives had entered Iran’s Fordow uranium enrichment facility “many times.” The claim, if taken at face value, means agents from Israel’s premier intelligence agency repeatedly walked through what Tehran considers one of the most secure nuclear installations on the planet.

Fordow is buried deep inside a mountain near the city of Qom. It was designed specifically to be impervious to aerial bombardment and foreign interference.

What Cohen actually said

Cohen, who led Mossad from 2015 to 2021, described operatives who had “toured” or “walked around” the Fordow facility on multiple occasions.

Cohen also addressed the US military strike on Fordow conducted during Operation Rising Lion in June 2025. He called it “the fulfillment of all my dreams.”

Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization characterized the damage from that US bombing campaign as “limited.”

The ambiguity is the point

There is a deliberate gap in Cohen’s account. He did not specify whether Israeli operatives physically set foot inside Fordow or whether the “tours” involved advanced surveillance and remote intelligence-gathering methods.

In 2018, Israeli operatives extracted a massive trove of Iran’s nuclear program files from a warehouse in Tehran. That operation was also conducted under Cohen’s leadership.

Iran’s nuclear status and what it means

Cohen stated that Iran had enriched uranium to 60% purity but asserted this was still “far from a bomb.” Weapons-grade uranium typically requires enrichment to around 90%.

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