Jerusalem man arrested, to be charged with spying for Iran

A  Jerusalem man is set to be charged with security offenses after police arrested him on suspicion of intelligence gathering for an Iranian agent, law enforcement announced Monday.

Police detained the 21-year-old on March 26, reportedly months after he carried out the alleged offenses. The State Attorney’s Office submitted a prosecutor’s declaration against him Monday morning, meaning an indictment will be filed in the coming days.

The suspect allegedly gathered intelligence for over two months in 2025, traveling to different locations throughout the country. He bought filming equipment for this purpose, police said in a statement.

According to i24 News, the suspect carried out these tasks during Israel’s 12-day war with Iran in June. He allegedly focused on crowded areas, including parks, and traveled from place to place in a car despite lacking a valid driver’s license.

The young man was also enlisted to take photos of the route to Ra’anana, near the residence of former prime minister Naftali Bennett, the outlet reported.

Like most Israelis nabbed on suspicion of spying for Iranian interests, the suspect met his contact online and was paid by him in cryptocurrency, police said. They claimed he was “aware that he was working on behalf of a hostile actor.”

The investigation into the young man was conducted jointly by Jerusalem District police detectives and the Shin Bet security service. His arrest marked the latest in a string of espionage cases linked to the Islamic Republic, which authorities have continued to uncover amid the current war.

Worries of Tehran’s penetration into Israeli society heightened earlier Monday morning, when the Ashkelon Magistrate’s Court revealed new details about a case concerning several Israelis alleged to have manufactured explosives on Iran’s behalf.

The police’s Lahav 433 major crimes unit is investigating the case, which remains under a partial gag order.

Investigators believe that during the ongoing war, the suspects not only created explosives at the behest of Iranian actors, but also tested the finished products.

Iran for several years has been attempting to spy on prominent Israeli politicians, security officials and scientists, presumably with the goal of assassinating them.

To this end, Iranian actors have been known to enlist ordinary Israeli citizens they meet online — usually via the Telegram messaging app — to spy on such figures in exchange for money.

Agents usually start out assigning Israeli recruits mundane tasks such as vandalism, but their requests often escalate into serious offenses like espionage and intelligence gathering.

Most, but not all, recruits have been known to spurn agents’ suggestions to assassinate Israeli public figures.

Exceptions to this include a pair of Jewish young men from Tiberias, arrested while preparing to fly to Iran for shooting training, and a group of seven young men from Beit Safafa, an Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem, who planned to assassinate a prominent scientist and mayor of a major city.