Israel Sees an Unprecedented Surge in Citizens Spying for Iran

As its war with Iranian proxies drags into a second year, Israel’s top officials are alarmed about a new threat to the home front: their fellow citizens helping Tehran locate targets for missile salvos and potential assassinations.

Since July, the Shin Bet counter-intelligence service has gone public with nine cases that produced indictments against 23 suspected spies - most of them, unusually, from Israel’s Jewish majority. Around half face charges that could in theory carry the death penalty but usually stop at life behind bars if found guilty. In a small country used to closing ranks during crises, the sense of trust and security has frayed.

Meanwhile, Iran’s promise of a “crushing” counter-strike after Israeli warplanes bombed its territory on Oct. 26 has raised the fresh specter of local informants helping it deliver the blow. 

“This is unprecedented in scope - both in terms of the number of cells and their variety,” Supt. Maor Goren, a senior police investigator, told Bloomberg.

Special Spy Wards

The minister for national security, Itamar Ben Gvir, has also sounded the alarm and wants a special prison ward to be set up for spies, his spokesperson said. 

Seven of the suspects are Palestinians who are believed to have political motivations, Goren said. The rest were primarily drawn by the offer of thousands of dollars in payment, and were netted by Iranian intelligence after browsing bogus money-making chat-rooms online, he said. 

They include several Eastern European immigrants, at least one married couple, two minors, a resident of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish town and a businessman in his 70s. Most are being represented by the Public Defender’s Office and have yet to enter pleas.

“These are people on the fringes of society, without careers, families or roots in the community,” Goren said. “They lacked a full sense of commitment or loyalty to the country.”

Iran’s mission to the United Nations described the Israeli allegations as “unfounded” and “unlikely to be accurate.” Tehran has long accused Israel of using Iranian agents for covert operations including the assassination of its nuclear scientists.

Goren said the Iranians appeared to have adopted a scattershot approach to seeking out spies through social media: “They’ve dispensed with the traditional practice of carefully cultivating someone for years.”

Danny Orbach, professor of military history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, argued that while espionage usually surges in wartime, so does the vigilance of the security services - and operatives assigned high-risk missions like surveillance of army bases or assassinations can be easier to interdict than “sleeper agents.”

The indicted businessman is accused of secretly traveling via Turkey to Iran. There, the Shin Bet said, he met his handlers, who asked that he help arrange an attempt on the lives of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in retaliation for the July 31 assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. 

$1 Million Request

Those discussions stalled after the businessman demanded a $1 million advance payment, the Shin Bet said. The suspect’s lawyer said his client had committed “an error in judgment” and, having been arrested upon return to Israel, was cooperating with authorities. 

Other suspects are accused of carrying out minor infractions - torching cars, spray-painting graffiti, photographing military facilities - to establish their obedience to orders from Tehran. What sometimes followed, the Shin Bet said, were instructions to track and kill figures currently or formerly linked to Israel’s national-security establishment. 

One suspect was arrested with gun in hand, said Goren, adding that he had confessed to leaving empty jerry-cans in a hiding place for two other suspects - whom he did not know - to collect for their separate mission. That indicated a network of spies was being built. “We always assume there are more out there,” Goren said. 

A bomb set off in a Tel Aviv park last year was part of a failed plot by a spy cell to assassinate an ex-defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, as he jogged, police said. According to Goren, a military surveillance balloon that was attacked by Hezbollah had been flagged to the Iranian-backed Lebanese fighters by some of the indicted suspects. 

“What makes this so grave is that information is being relayed in real time, during a war,” former Shin Bet director Yoram Cohen said. 

Even the well-guarded Netanyahu appears to be taking such threats seriously. After an explosives-laden Hezbollah drone struck his holiday home on Oct. 19, he relocated a meeting of his cabinet to an underground bunker.