Breakfast with Barnea | Ex-Mossad boss is supposed to chat in the Bundestag, ECCHR wants arrest

At the Mossad headquarters, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted on an arrest warrant as a suspected war criminal, meets director David Barnea (left). The latter not only boasted about the devastating pager attacks in Lebanon. Photo: dpa/GPO/Koby Gideon On November 25th, David Barnea, director of the Israeli foreign secret service Mossad until June 2026, is scheduled to appear at a “parliamentary breakfast” in the German Bundestag. This emerges from an invitation from the Middle East Peace Forum (Naffo), which “nd” was able to see. It is entitled “Exclusive: Behind the Scenes of the Mossad” and, according to a Naffo spokeswoman, is aimed exclusively at invited members of parliament. The lobby organization brusquely rejects further questions from “nd” about the event. She is close to Israel's government.

“Hardly any intelligence service in the world is as well known, feared by enemies and valued by allies as the Israeli foreign secret service Mossad,” the invitation says. "Take advantage of this extraordinary opportunity to find out first-hand in a confidential setting how the former head of the Mossad assesses the situation and the future of the Middle East and what that means for Germany." The patronage for the "Breakfast" is the Green Party parliamentary group deputy Konstantin von Notz, who is also deputy chairman of the Parliamentary Control Committee (PKGr), which is supposed to monitor the German secret services for compliance with the law.

The invitation is also piquant in light of the current affair surrounding August Hanning: after investigations against the ex-BND chief became known at the beginning of October, Von Notz sharply criticized the lobbying and advisory activities of former secret service heads.

Barnea himself spent five years at the head of an authority that was significantly involved in Israeli attacks in Gaza and neighboring countries and which is therefore accused of violating international humanitarian law. In the Naffo invitation, such acts are described as “many spectacular operations.” The explosions of thousands of prepared pagers and radios in Lebanon in September 2024 are mentioned. At least 37 people died and more than 3,000 were injured, including children and medical staff. Amnesty International and several UN special rapporteurs and members of UN working groups called for an investigation into possible war crimes because of the pager attacks, which also affected civilians.

Andreas Schüller from the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) is therefore also calling on the federal government to prosecute Barneas: "If people are suspected of having committed war crimes, they must be investigated." In the present case, UN experts assessed the attacks accordingly. The human rights lawyer is calling on the federal government to arrest Barnea upon entry in order to carry out further investigations and possibly prepare an indictment. “Germany is obliged to do this under international law according to the Geneva Conventions,” Schüller tells “nd”.

Legal scholar Nahed Samour also calls for this. With the International Criminal Code, Germany has instruments to prosecute suspected war crimes even if they were committed abroad. “This is about the consistent application of constitutional principles and German law,” says Samour, who works at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands. “The PKGr vice-chairman would be well advised to forward cases of alleged international crimes by Israel to the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office,” says legal scholar Samour von Notz. Anyone can file such a criminal complaint against Barnea, and the highest German prosecution authority will then check whether there is initial suspicion.

Barnea is also expected to be one of the most important witnesses in the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The ICC ordered their arrest in November 2024. They are accused, among other things, of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Under Barnea's leadership, the Mossad was jointly responsible for further attacks that violated international law. On September 27, 2024, ten days after the pager explosions, the Israeli Air Force killed Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah in an attack on the organization's alleged underground headquarters in Beirut. According to research by the Jerusalem Post, 85 bombs were dropped in a densely populated urban area. Mossad agents had previously installed tracking technology in the building.

The Mossad also played a key role in the twelve-day attacks against the Iranian nuclear program in June 2025. Barnea then publicly acknowledged the work of its employees. Barnea also claimed Mossad involvement in the 2026 war against Iran. Its task is to bring about regime change in Iran, the Times of Israel quotes.

On the phone, the angry Naffo spokeswoman demanded that the "nd" reveal its sources in relation to the personalized invitation - otherwise they would not answer press inquiries about it. She ultimately stopped responding to an email she also requested.

The pro-Israel association, founded in 2009, is registered in the lobby register of the German Bundestag. With his activities, Naffo wants to convey that the security interests of Germany and Israel are “inseparably” linked. At the top of his list of topics is currently a “stop of payments for UNRWA in the Gaza Strip.” This refers to the United Nations relief agency for Palestine refugees, the destruction of which Israel has been pushing politically but also with armed force since the beginning of the Gaza war.

Naffo's activities include delegation trips to Israel, during which meetings with high-ranking politicians or arms companies are arranged. According to research by "nd", Naffo has also been involved in an international working group initiated by the Netanyahu government since 2014 to develop legal and legislative strategies against the "delegitimization of Israel". Left-wing members of the Bundestag also traveled to Israel with Naffo at this time - the club sometimes covered all travel costs. After this became known, the group wanted to stop this as undue influence for its members. However, a resolution proposed by Left MPs Clara Bünger and Janine Wissler came to nothing during the summer break.

It is surprising that von Notz, of all people, takes over the patronage of this event, which was advertised as a chat, despite the serious allegations against Barnea. At the beginning of October, the Green politician criticized the activities of former secret keepers in private consulting and lobbying companies in connection with the Hanning affair. In Germany, von Notz called for stricter legal regulations: top civil servants should not be allowed to work in dubious consulting firms.

The "nd" also asked von Notz for a statement on the invitation and the possible contradiction to his recent statements on the lobbying of ex-secret service agents. His answers were consistent with service practice: nothing was confirmed or denied. Even when asked simple yes or no questions, such as about one's own participation, von Notz said: "I regularly take on patronage for very different rounds and exchange formats in the parliamentary space."

So it remains unclear in which role the ex-Mossad director should reveal his war crimes in the Bundestag: as an advisor, lobbyist for Israel's interests or as a private individual? Or even as a negotiator for the Israeli arms company Ondas, to which Barnea moved immediately after the end of his five-year term at the head of the Mossad? Ondas is active in the areas of sensor technology, drones and other military robotics; Barnea is responsible for international business development there.

Left-wing MP Clara Bünger calls von Notz's patronage of the Barnea event an "absolute scandal" with reference to the deadly Mossad pager attacks in Lebanon. “I expect a green PKGr member to distance himself from a suspected war criminal, clearly condemn the actions and not invite him to the parliamentary breakfast,” said Bünger.

The left-wing Bundestag member Lea Reisner also criticizes: "This shows that we urgently need a left-wing, critical perspective in the parliamentary control committee." This is an allusion to the non-election of Bünger, who was nominated by her group for the PKGr, but failed several times to achieve the required majority in the Bundestag elections.

The left-wing politicians did not receive an invitation to the Naffo breakfast with ex-Mossad boss Barnea. “It was probably expected that we would not tolerate such a scandal,” explain Reisner and Bünger.

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