Beit Shemesh man convicted of spying for Iran sentenced to 3 years in prison

Elimelech Stern, a 22-year-old ultra-Orthodox yeshiva student from Beit Shemesh convicted of conducting espionage missions for Iran, was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment and a NIS 10,000 ($3,200) fine on Thursday.

Judge Miriam Lomp of the Jerusalem District Court wrote that although his crime was serious, his sentence is relatively moderate since his motivation was to improve his financial situation, rather than ideological.

“The crime for which the defendant was convicted is serious and has great potential to harm the security of the state and undermine Israel’s very existence,” wrote the judge.

“Contact with a foreign agent does harm to security due to the concern for the transfer of information to the enemy, knowingly or unknowingly, especially when this contact is translated into threats against people in Israel.”

Lomp added: “The severity of the defendant’s crimes is heightened by the fact that he is an Israeli and the country therefore puts its faith in him.”

Stern was found guilty of contact with a foreign agent and conspiring to make threats after he carried out several missions for an Iranian intelligence agent in exchange for money in 2024.

Separately, the Shin Bet and police announced on Thursday that Israeli forces had “arrested two Israeli citizens in their 20s involved in an espionage affair for Iran.”

The pair was slated to be indicted in the coming days after a prosecutor’s declaration was filed against them in the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court on Thursday afternoon.

Despite both men residing in Jerusalem, their alleged espionage was investigated by West Bank District police detectives alongside the Shin Bet. They were arrested last month.

There is a gag order in effect regarding the case due to the incident’s severity and concerns about harming state security, police said.

Over the past two years, dozens of Israelis have been charged with espionage on behalf of Iran. In many of the cases, Iranian agents recruited Israelis via social media, specifically the Telegram messaging app.

Many alleged Israeli spies recruited by Iranian agents begin with relatively innocuous tasks, such as vandalizing buildings with anti-government and pro-Iranian messages, then sending photos of the graffiti to their handlers. These gradually turn into more serious offenses, like intelligence-gathering and assassination plots.

The growing number of Iranian agents even prompted Israel to open up a new wing for them in Haifa’s Damon prison. Only one of the alleged spies — Stern — has been convicted so far, as most cases are still making their way through the legal system. Another Israeli has been convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison over contacts he had with Iranian agents, some of them inside Iran, in which they discussed a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — though that conviction wasn’t on espionage charges.