{"id":449411,"date":"2026-05-19T12:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T12:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/449411\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T12:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T12:50:10","slug":"incoming-mossad-chief-denied-approving-telegram-intelligence-transfers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/449411\/","title":{"rendered":"Incoming Mossad chief denied approving Telegram intelligence transfers"},"content":{"rendered":"

IDF Brig.-Gen. \u201cG\u201d told the High Court of Justice<\/a> that incoming Mossad chief Maj.-Gen. Roman Gofman<\/a> denied in 2022 that he had approved the transfer of intelligence materials from his division to Telegram channels, according to a newly declassified affidavit submitted in the petitions against Gofman\u2019s appointment.<\/p>\n

The affidavit was filed as part of the High Court petitions challenging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s appointment of Gofman as the next Mossad chief. The petitions focus in part on the Ori Elmakayes<\/a> affair, involving claims that Elmakayes, who was then a minor, was used in an IDF-linked influence operation connected to the 210th Division while Gofman commanded it. The High Court had requested G\u2019s affidavit in order to clarify a May 2022 inquiry he conducted with Gofman.<\/p>\n

G served as head of the IDF Intelligence Directorate\u2019s Operational Activation Division from August 2021 to September 2024. In the affidavit, he said that under his authority was the operational process for using intelligence materials for influence operations, and that his account relied on a contemporaneous summary of the conversation prepared by his assistant, who listened to the conversation.<\/p>\n

According to the affidavit, the matter began with a May 15, 2022, meeting chaired by the then-head of Military Intelligence, after the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) raised the need to rule out the possibility that IDF<\/a> personnel had allegedly passed intelligence material to unauthorized Telegram channels as part of an approved influence operation.<\/p>\n

G wrote that the purpose was to determine whether the conduct, if it had occurred, was part of an initiated IDF influence operation or whether there was a possible espionage concern. He said the Shin Bet had updated at the time that, alongside several 8200 soldiers, two additional IDF figures had been linked to the Telegram channels: an officer in the 210th Division Intelligence Department and a noncommissioned officer in Central Command\u2019s Intelligence Department.<\/p>\n

\"OriOri Elmakayes at the Supreme Court of Justice May 12, 2026 (credit: Marc Israel Sellem\/Jerusalem Post)<\/p>\n

Following that meeting, G wrote, the head of Military Intelligence instructed him to hold a clarification call with Gofman, who was then commander of 210th Division. The IDF Information Security Department was instructed to conduct a separate clarification with Central Command.<\/p>\n

G said the conversation with Gofman was short and preliminary. Its purpose, he wrote, was to clarify whether Gofman knew of anyone in the division allegedly transferring intelligence materials to Telegram channels as part of an approved influence operation, and whether any such transfer had been done with Gofman\u2019s knowledge.<\/p>\n

The inquiry was not meant to examine the broader operational conduct of the division\u2019s influence activity or the detailed relationship with the Telegram channels, G wrote.<\/p>\n

IDF Brig.-Gen. unaware of Elmakayes’s name, connection<\/p>\n

G also said he did not know at the time who stood behind the Telegram pages, and was not aware of Elmakayes\u2019s name or his connection to them. For that reason, he wrote, Elmakayes\u2019s name did not come up in the conversation. That point appears to narrow the dispute around whether Gofman was asked directly about Elmakayes himself.<\/p>\n

During the call, G said he asked Gofman whether he knew of a connection between someone in the division and two Telegram channels. Gofman replied that he did not know of such a connection, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

G then asked who under Gofman\u2019s command would know of such a connection if it had existed without Gofman\u2019s knowledge. Gofman answered that influence activity in the division was led by the division\u2019s information security officer and UN liaison officer, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

Gofman also said that the division\u2019s influence activity was based only on open-source materials, or OSINT, and was generally conducted with influence actors on the Syrian side, G wrote.<\/p>\n

Use of intelligence material would require Gofman’s personal approval, affidavit says<\/p>\n

According to the affidavit, Gofman further said that any use of intelligence material required his personal approval, and that, with near-total certainty, such a move would not have been carried out without his approval.<\/p>\n

Gofman asked to check the matter with his subordinates in order to provide a definitive answer, G wrote, but G told him not to do so because the investigation was still underway and such a check could harm it.<\/p>\n

G said he later updated the head of Military Intelligence and the IDF Information Security Department that Gofman\u2019s answer to whether he had approved the transfer of intelligence materials to the Telegram channels was negative.<\/p>\n

The affidavit also addressed recent reports regarding G\u2019s later role in the Mossad. G wrote that since the May 2022 call, he had not exchanged a word with Gofman about the issue in any way, and had not asked or initiated any approach to Gofman regarding his continued work in the Mossad.<\/p>\n

N12 had reported that Gofman had acted to examine the possibility of keeping G in the Mossad, despite an earlier decision that G was expected to leave the organization, and that the matter raised concern inside the Mossad because G had been asked to submit an affidavit in Gofman\u2019s High Court case.<\/p>\n

The affidavit was initially submitted under a \u201ctop secret\u201d classification. The Attorney-General\u2019s Office told the court that the classification had been set by the military, not by the attorney-general. After an urgent appeal to the IDF, the state informed the court that the classification could be removed subject to several limited redactions.<\/p>\n

The affidavit is expected to be central to the High Court\u2019s consideration of the petitions. The case has become one of the most sensitive disputes surrounding a senior security appointment, coming ahead of Gofman\u2019s expected entry into the Mossad role on June 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"IDF Brig.-Gen. \u201cG\u201d told the High Court of Justice that incoming Mossad chief Maj.-Gen. Roman Gofman denied in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[21624,49,42,835,1031,16096,43,99765,73,12159,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-449411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-attorney-general","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-headlines","tag-high-court-of-justice","tag-idf","tag-mossad","tag-news","tag-roman-gofman","tag-shin-bet","tag-telegram","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}