Leaked comments reveal Mossad provoked mass Iranian arrests to protect covert agents —— Former Mossad director David Barnea claims that Israeli intelligence deliberately publicized video footage of covert operations inside Iran to trigger mass arrests, using Iranian citizens to shield its actual operational network. According to leaked comments published by The Jerusalem Post and video footage verified by Yedioth Ahronoth, Barnea admitted during a closed-door address at the Priority Summit that the Israeli spy agency intentionally released real-time footage during the June 2025 military confrontation to overwhelm Iranian security forces. Barnea explained that Mossad sought to provoke sweeping detentions so that Iranian counterintelligence "wouldn't be able to distinguish the wheat from the chaff.". The former intelligence chief claims that a vast majority of those swept up by Iranian authorities under espionage charges had no operational connection to Mossad. This claims mean that Israel intentionally manufactured conditions designed to spark systemic panic within Iran, and that Israeli intelligence calculatedly exposed ordinary Iranian citizens to potential detention to preserve its own intelligence assets working covertly within Iran.