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Israel said on Monday it had arrested seven Israeli citizens after uncovering a long-standing operation to spy on sensitive military and energy installations on behalf of Iran.
The arrests of the group — who Israeli authorities alleged carried out reconnaissance for more than two years in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency — came after Iran and Tehran-backed Hizbollah attacked Israeli military sites in recent months.
The seven Jewish Israelis, including two minors, carried out “hundreds” of intelligence-gathering missions for Iran, including photographing sensitive military installations such as the Nevatim air base, Iron Dome air defence batteries and the Hadera power plant, said Israeli authorities. They also gathered information on naval bases and other targets, authorities said.
Some of the sites have been targeted in missile attacks by Iran or the Lebanon-based Hizbollah militant group in recent months.
The suspects are expected to be charged soon with major security offences, said police and the Shin Bet internal security agency. Israeli authorities alleged they were directed by two Iranian agents code-named “Alkhan” and “Orkhan”.
Iran has not so far responded to the latest spying claims.
Israeli police said the alleged offences were “among the most serious that the state of Israel has known. The suspects acted while knowing about their actions and out of greed for money — and harmed the State of Israel and its citizens,” an official from the force said in a statement.
Israel has been battling Iran and its various proxy militias across the Middle East for more than a year, since Hamas’s cross-border assault from Gaza on October 7 2023 sparked the ongoing conflict.
Iran and Israel exchanged direct fire for the first time in their history last April, and again earlier this month when Tehran fired nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel. Israeli leaders have vowed a “severe” response against Iran.
Members of the suspected spy network “were aware that the intelligence they provided compromised national security and could potentially aid enemy missile attacks”, the Israel police and Shin Bet said in a statement.
Several of the suspects were arrested near the home of an “Israeli citizen” they were said to be monitoring, raising suspicions that Iran had also made prominent Israelis potential targets.
Israel’s intelligence services have been suspected of conducting espionage, sabotage and assassinations on Iranian soil for years, including the theft of the country’s nuclear archives in 2018 and the killing of chief Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020.
More recently, Iran accused Israel of carrying out a bombing in July at an Iranian military guesthouse in Tehran that killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
Iranian efforts to recruit Israeli citizens are an ongoing concern for Israel’s intelligence services, including in recent weeks.
Last month a 72-year-old Israeli businessman was indicted on espionage charges after Shin Bet said he had travelled to Iran. Last week, an Israeli couple was arrested over police allegations that they had been recruited by Iranian intelligence.
However, the latest arrests point to a network of alleged spies that was unusual both for its scale and for the long period in which it was said to have operated.
“This occurred amidst ongoing conflicts in multiple arenas. It is assessed that these activities have inflicted security damage on the state,” said a Shin Bet official.
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