Despite major successes in the war, Barnea remains shadowed by the Oct. 7 intelligence failure.By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel NewsMossad chief David Barnea has decided to resign, eyeing June as the target date to allow for an orderly transition.The decision not to request an extension of the regular five-year tenure was reportedly made together with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Barnea had said when he took on the job that he would only stay for the designated period.According to a Channel 12 report on Wednesday, there are three top candidates to become the new chief of Israel’s equivalent to the American CIA, although the prime minister can always expand his search.Two of them are insiders – the Mossad’s current deputy head, known only as “A,” and “H,” an official who has held a senior operational role over the course of the War of Revival.The third is Maj. Gen. Roman Gofman, who has been Netanyahu’s military secretary for the last year and a half.Gofman previously served as commander of the Tzeelim training base and held a senior position in COGAT, the authority that coordinates with Palestinians in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip.He was also seriously wounded in battle with Hamas forces in Sderot during the terrorists’ invasion on Oct. 7, 2023, when he rushed there from home after hearing they had penetrated the town and joined police volunteers trying to stem the incursion.Under Barnea, the Mossad scored several remarkable successes during the subsequent war, especially during the 12-day war with Iran in June.More than 100 Israeli agents reportedly smuggled missile systems and destroyed many of Iran’s anti-aircraft systems and ballistic missile launchers from within, helping secure the IDF’s dominance of the skies and reduce the missile threat to Israel’s home front.Agents also reportedly pinpointed the locations of senior Iranian military commanders and nuclear scientists who were subsequently assassinated.In 2024, the Mossad was also responsible for the assassination of Hamas’ political head, Ismail Haniyeh, in a heavily guarded Tehran apartment on July 31, and the pager operation in September in Lebanon, when booby-trapped beepers sold via third parties to Hezbollah were detonated simultaneously, wounding a few thousand operatives and demoralizing the terror force, leading to its defeat two months later.Despite these triumphs, Barnea remains tainted by the enormous intelligence failure that led to Oct. 7, when Hamas-led forces massacred nearly 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, triggering the War of Revival.Just two weeks before Oct. 7, the Mossad had circulated a position paper stating that the terror organization was not interested in fighting Israel, in line with the consensus of the entire top security and intelligence echelon at the time.The bureau defended itself by noting that “the Mossad is not responsible for strategic warnings regarding the Palestinian arena, and therefore also did not operate in the Gaza Strip. Consequently, the weight of the aforementioned document in decision-making processes was minimal to negligible.”Barnea personally played a major role in the indirect negotiations for the hostages’ release from the very beginning of the war, flying often to Qatar, where most of the discussions took place.The post Barnea to Step Down as Mossad Chief in June appeared first on World Israel News.