Three Israeli citizens were arrested in recent weeks on suspicion of harming the country’s national security on behalf of the Iranian regime, the Israel Security Agency and Israel Police revealed on Tuesday.
One of the suspects, Elimelech Stern, a 21-year-old ultra-Orthodox resident of Beit Shemesh near Jerusalem, was charged on Tuesday with illegal contact with a foreign agent, Israel’s Ynet news outlet reported.
According to the charges filed at the Jerusalem District Court, Stern first came into contact with the agent, who identified himself by the name “Anna Elena,” through the encrypted Telegram messaging app.
The agent convinced him to carry out actions including hanging anti-Israel signs in Tel Aviv, burying cash around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, delivering packages to the doorsteps of Israeli civilians containing the severed head of an animal or a doll next to a knife and threatening messages, setting fire to a forest and more.
“I have various missions in the cities of Israel that not everyone has the ability to do,” the Iranian agent was said to have told Stern, adding that “my missions have rewards from $100 to $100,000.” Israeli authorities said the suspect had agreed to carry out all the activities as requested, with the exception of committing murder and setting a forest on fire.
The indictment said Stern was paid in cryptocurrency and that he recruited the two other suspects to help him carry out the activities.
His family, part of the Vizhnitz hassidic dynasty, said however that he denies all charges, per Ynet. Stern’s friends told the outlet that Stern does not have Telegram as he has a so-called kosher phone.
“The use of the method of contacting Israeli citizens through social networks, under the false representation of the identity of the person making the request, is a well-known method of operation of the Iranian intelligence agencies,” the ISA noted.
The statement added that many online profiles linked to Iran have been discovered in recent months and that authorities continue to collect intelligence information on the “elements behind their operation.”
Almost a year ago, the Jerusalem District Court acquitted two Israeli citizens—a man and a woman—of spying for the Islamic Republic, while convicting a third, a woman, of a lesser offense, putting an end to a case that made national headlines in 2022.
The three suspects, all Persian-speaking Israelis born in the Islamic Republic, stood trial on charges of contact with a foreign agent and providing information that could be useful to an enemy state.
The judge said at the time, “The relations between the defendants and the foreign agent were established without them knowing his true identity,” adding: “Innocent and good people are often taken advantage of by parties ... who are plotting evil against them or their country.”
