These are espionage activities “among the most severe that Israel has experienced against it”, according to an official of the Shin Bet, the Israeli intelligence services. The arrest in recent weeks by Israel of around thirty people of Israeli or Jewish origin accused of working on behalf of Iran, within nine secret cells, is causing concern in the country. The signal “that Tehran has been deploying, for decades, the most significant efforts to infiltrate its sworn enemy”, believes the Times of Israel.
These dozens of recruitments, sometimes permitted via social networks in exchange for financial compensation, aimed to accomplish various missions: sabotage actions, collection of information on military bases and Israeli air defenses; to assassination attempts on former military officials and a nuclear engineer, the British agency revealed Reutersciting Israeli sources.
Thus, a father and his son would have, for example, transmitted information on the movements of Israeli forces in the Golan Heights, where they lived, indicated the Israeli police. According to the Shin Bet, however, much of the recruits’ activities were limited to spraying anti-Netanyahu or anti-government graffiti.
“A large-scale phenomenon”
“So far,” Israel has managed to avoid threats to its scientists and military officials. But intelligence is concerned about a “large-scale” phenomenon, referring to the number of Jewish citizens, in Israel or abroad, who have knowingly agreed to cooperate with Iran.
Where the Islamic Republic had tried, in the past, to recruit highly placed people, these new spies on the contrary live on the margins of Israeli society: “People who have recently immigrated, an army deserter, or even a recruit convicted of sexual assault.” Individuals are first given innocuous tasks, before specific intelligence on targets is demanded, backed by the threat of blackmail.
Reuters cites in particular the case of a 30-year-old Israeli suspect, Vladislav Victorsson, who initially accepted “tasks such as graffiti, hiding money, posting leaflets and burning cars”, for which he allegedly received $5,000. Before, according to the security services investigation, “agreeing to carry out the assassination of an Israeli personality” and seeking to obtain weapons.
Israeli intelligence, which does not usually communicate about its activities, has this time decided to publish detailed accounts of these alleged plots, in order “to signal both to Iran and to potential saboteurs in Israel that they would be arrested,” said Ben Hanan, a former senior Shin Bet official.