Bezalel Zini, the brother of Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) Director David Zini, was charged on Thursday with assisting the enemy during wartime, accused of smuggling cigarettes to Gaza while serving there as a soldier.
The State Attorney’s Office said that Zini, 50, from the southern Samaria village of Ofra, used his position as an IDF reservist to smuggle approximately 14 crates of cigarettes through the Sufa Crossing, knowing they could reach terror groups, including Hamas, and help support terrorism.
Zini and two co-defendants “acted for financial gain, knowing that their actions circumvented the restrictions imposed by the State of Israel on the transfer of goods into Gaza as part of wartime efforts, despite the clear security risk inherent in their conduct,” prosecutors said.
Jerusalem banned the entry of cigarettes into Hamas-run Gaza during the war, with officials saying the products are sold at high prices on the black market and heavily taxed by the Palestinian terrorist organization.
Prosecutors said Zini received 365,000 shekels ($117,500) for three separate instances of smuggling. Co-defendant Amir Dov Halperin was allegedly paid 4.3 million shekels ($1.4 million), part of which was shared among some of the defendants. Aviel Ben-David was allegedly promised 815,000 shekels ($262,000), though prosecutors said the pay-out was never transferred.
All defendants were charged with aiding the enemy in wartime, dealing in property for terror-related purposes, obtaining benefits by aggravated fraud, and accepting bribes, the State Attorney’s Office stated, adding that Ben-David and Halperin were also charged with giving bribes.
In addition, the defendants were charged with tax offenses and violations under the Counter-Terrorism Law, it said.
Prosecutors filed a request to confiscate the assets of the defendants.
Zini was arrested last month along with a dozen other suspects in what police described as “a multi-suspect affair concerning the smuggling of goods into Gaza,” with details limited by a court-enforced gag order.
Prosecutors on Wednesday had submitted indictments against 12 other suspects, including Israelis and residents of Gaza, on charges including aiding the enemy during wartime, prohibited dealings in property for terrorist purposes, aggravated fraud, bribery and additional offenses.
The groups of defendants “operated in various combinations to smuggle cigarettes, sharing the profits from the sales,” the State Attorney’s Office said in its statement on Thursday. They allegedly did so by “deceiving soldiers at crossings into Gaza and falsely presenting themselves as entering the area for military and security-related purposes.”
Shmuel Zini, another Zini brother, told reporters at the Ashkelon Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday that his family believes the case is part of a plot to remove from his post David Zini, who was appointed Shin Bet chief in October.
“The path is long, but the truth will win out,” Shmuel Zini told reporters, adding, “The Israeli public understands the situation.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s May decision to nominate David Zini—a retired major general who is Orthodox, has 11 children and comes from a family of rabbis of Algerian descent—was met with criticism, with some pointing to his lack of experience inside the agency.
