Israel Says Iranian Agents Recruited Dozens of Its Citizens [View all]
Israel Says Iranian Agents Recruited Dozens of Its Citizens
The agents cajoled people into acts of sabotage and even assassination plots. The cases have raised questions about greed, gullibility and loyalty.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/17/world/middleeast/israel-says-iranian-agents-recruited-dozens-of-its-citizens.html
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Vladislav Victorson, second from left, and Anya Bernstein, second from right, at a hearing in Tel Aviv last month. They have been accused of crimes including maintaining contact with a foreign agent.Credit...Isabel Kershner/The New York Times
Isabel Kershner
By Isabel Kershner
Aug. 17, 2025, 5:00 a.m. ET
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His first job, according to Israeli court documents, involved spray painting antigovernment slogans around his neighborhood, including one comparing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Hitler.
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The employer, it turned out, was an Iranian agent, according to the police and Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency. Mr. Victorson and Ms. Bernstein, who were arrested in October 2024, were part of a wave of Israelis lured through the internet into working for Iran, according to Israeli authorities.
The demands by the Telegram messenger quickly escalated to sabotaging electricity boxes with sulfuric acid, setting cars alight, using a hair-spray canister and firecrackers to make a bomb, and ultimately plotting to assassinate an Israeli professor for $100,000.
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The Iranian effort adds a new dimension to a shadow war Israel and Iran have been engaged in for decades, with Israel seeking to clip Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, and Iran supporting proxy forces on Israel’s borders.
The recruitment of the Israeli citizens pales beside the sophisticated penetration by Israeli intelligence of Iran’s inner circles as evidenced by air assaults against Iranian nuclear and security sites, senior military figures and scientists in June. Iran also tries to infiltrate Israel’s inner circles, security experts say.
But Israeli officials and experts say that the low-level recruiting of ordinary Israelis — which has escalated since the Hamas-led attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, ignited the war in Gaza — is an attempt by Iran to foment internal strife and undermine Israeli society. By casting a wide net, the Iranian recruiters hoped to find a few willing to kill, while also raising troubling questions for Israel about the loyalty of some of its citizens.
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Myra Noveck contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
Isabel Kershner, a Times correspondent in Jerusalem, has been reporting on Israeli and Palestinian affairs since 1990.
See more on: Shin Bet
Other suspects are a cross-section of Israeli society, including religious and secular Jews, immigrants, Arab citizens, an Iranian-born Israeli, a soldier, and a resident of a West Bank Jewish settlement. Mr. Maman is the oldest; the youngest is 13.
Missions included arson and finding buried money, weapons or explosives and relocoting them to selected spots. Recruits were to obtain cameras, and equipment to download encryption programs for secure communications.