Tehran recruited Israelis to spy on their homeland

Euronews

2 days ago

Last week, news broke of the arrest in Israel of two 24-year-old Israelis, Roy Mazrahi and Almoog Attias, on charges of spying for the Islamic Republic of Iran's intelligence services.
The two were childhood friends, residents of the town of Nasher near the Israeli port of Haifa, had become addicted to gambling and amassed a lot of debt, the Jerusalem Post reported.
According to the report, Mazrahi met an unknown person through an Internet group, who offers him good money in exchange for doing seemingly irrelevant and harmless things. This young Israeli sees the situation as an opportunity to escape his financial crisis.
At first, Mazrahi was asked to photograph the areas around his home and then document the sales sign of a car dealership. His next assignment was to burn a note containing a message against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
As the missions went on, police said, they found more dangerous aspects, and Mazrahi realised at some point that his employers were Iranian. On another mission, he moved a briefcase, which he thought contained a bomb, from place to place.
Then came the main mission. He bought CCTV cameras and rented a room in a hotel in Tel Aviv, along with Almoog Attias, who had been attracted by the same unidentified person. The two then went to the village of Kfar Ahim, the residence of Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz in the south of the country.
Their mission was to install the camera facing the entrance road to Mr. Katz's home, which was not successful due to the presence of security forces.
Israeli defence officials told the court that the CCTV work was part of a larger operation to assassinate Katz.
However, although Roy Mazrahi and Almog Attias are the latest reported case of such espionage operations, several other cases had already been recorded. In fact, almost every few weeks, there is a new report of Israeli citizens being recruited as spies by Iranian intelligence forces.
According to a report by Israel's Internal Security Agency (SHINBET), espionage cases in Israel will increase by about 400 percent in 2024 compared to the previous year.
The detention of Roy Mazrahi and Almoog Attias was the 20th case linked to espionage for Iran's intelligence services in Israel in the past year, and Tehran appears to be seizing the opportunity of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza in their efforts to recruite Israeli citizens, said Maor Goren, head of the security department of the Israeli police's National Crime Combating Unit (Lahav 433). Spying has increased in the country.
Although the stories of the cases vary, there are clear patterns in all of them, the Jerusalem Post reported. The targetted persons are all facing financial difficulties and looking for a shortcut way to pay off their debts. Many of these people are immigrants who have recently arrived in Israel and have less national and patriotic belonging than older Israelis.
Yossi Mellman, an expert on espionage affairs and author of the book 'Spies Against Armageddon,' said, 'Most of the people being recruited are worthless and from the fringes of Israeli communities. But the worrying thing is that a country that is constantly calling for the destruction of Israel has been able to infiltrate its society.'
He said of the reason for the success of the Islamic Republic of Iran: 'This is linked to the social collapse of Israel in recent years. The society has lost its sense of solidarity and cohesion. Even the government is only concerned with its own survival. People say to themselves that now that government officials are working for Qatar, why not work for Iran?'
Maor Goren stressed, however, that many of the people who contact Iranian agents cut off contact after a while, and then brief the police.
The method of recruiting forces by the intelligence services of the Islamic Republic of Iran is also relatively simple and does not require complex planning or macro-investment. Iranian agents mostly carry out the recruitment process through social networks and with simple messages.
According to the report, Iranian agents typically target specific groups such as fundamentalist orthodox Jews opposed to Zionism, new immigrants, former criminals, and ordinary citizens mired in financial hardship. Some of those detained were immigrants from former Soviet states, and this may have led to a general distrust of certain strata of society. In fact, social media has given Iranian agents access to a part of Israeli society that was previously unavailable or unknown to them.
According to the Jerusalem Post, the Islamic Republic of Iran's intelligence services have contacted Israelis via WhatsApp, Facebook, Telegram, LinkedIn, Instagram and X, promising large sums in exchange for doing simple things such as photographing specific locations or people or writing graffiti. They have also occasionally published private detective search ads to gather intelligence from Israeli officials. Iranian agents have also launched phishing campaigns to collect information from Israeli citizens in the form of surveys.
In none of the recruitment methods has there been a sign of Iran at first, and most intrigued Israelis have said they did not know at first that they were working for Tehran.
Israel's Internal Security Agency (SHINBET) has had a successful performance in deterring the actions of Iranian agents, and so far it appears that no serious damage has been done to Israel's security. However, spying operations continue and many may still have not been identified.
Some critics of Israel's legal system believe that the punishment for the perpetrators attracted is too light, and that a few years in prison is not a deterrent for people who have engaged in such acts in exchange for receiving sums of money. Also, the exposure and detention of these individuals has no particular consequences for Tehran. Iranian agents are only waiting for the next victim to respond to their message.
In another case, Moshe Attias, an 18-year-old from Yabneh in central Israel, received such a message: 'Thank you for contacting Iranian intelligence. Message the user account below to speak to our experts on Telegram.'
Mr. Attias had received about $1,800 in his digital wallet for documentation from the hospital in Maier, where Naftali Bennett, the former Israeli prime minister, was hospitalized. He identified himself as a relative of Mr Bennett and gave information, including details of the security measures adopted at the site, to Iranian agents.
Yossi Mellman commented: 'Getting this close to Mr Bennett is an achievement for the Iranian agents and it shows that they are still continuing their actions. But their influence in Israel is still negligible compared to Israel's influence in Iran.'
In August last year, Israeli police detained Moti Maman, a 73-year-old Israeli citizen on suspicion of plotting to assassinate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to the indictment, he travelled secretly to Iran twice to meet with Iranian relations and requested $1 million in advance payments in Iran to carry out the assassination.
'Moti Maman had told his contacts that he had no access to high-level officials and had offered to target the mayor of Aka or Nahariya,' Mellman said.
He was sentenced to ten years in prison for espionage and plotting assassinations last month.
Last year, an Iranian intelligence network focusing only on Jewish immigrants from the Caucasus region managed to attract a couple through an Israeli citizen from Azerbaijan. According to the indictment, the couple received $600 a day for gathering information about potential targets, including surveillance of Mossad's main headquarters.
A seven-member network dubbed the 'Haifa Cell' is also accused of imaging dozens of military bases, Iron Dome systems and other strategic targets across Israel in exchange for $500 to $1,200 per mission.
According to the indictment, one of their surveillance targets was Navatim Air Base, which was later targeted by an Islamic Republic of Iran missile attack.
Not everyone attracted by Iranian agents, of course, is Jewish. Last October, seven Palestinians living in East Jerusalem were detained on suspicion of planning to assassinate a nuclear scientist and the mayor of one of Israel's major cities.
To date, Iran's intelligence efforts in Israel do not appear to have achieved much success. Because no senior Israeli official has been assassinated, and even if on occasion live and simultaneous information has been passed to Tehran, this information appears to have been superficial and did not lead to any specific action.
However, as Yossi Mellman warns: 'We are ignorant of what we don't know, and the most worrying thing is that some Israelis are willing to betray their homeland for a fistful of dollars.'