Beit Shemesh yeshiva student convicted of spying for Iran

The Jerusalem District Court convicts Elimelech Stern, a 22-year-old yeshiva student from Beit Shemesh, of espionage for Iran.

He is 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 last year.

Stern is one of dozens of Israeli citizens who have been arrested and charged with spying on behalf of the Islamic Republic, but is one of the first to be convicted since most espionage cases are still working their way through the legal system.

Stern confessed to being in contact with his operator, who went by the alias “Anna Elena,” over Telegram during a series of Shin Bet interrogations following his arrest. Later in court, he insisted that he was unaware he had been communicating with a foreign actor.

According to the conviction handed down by Judge Hannah Miriam Lump, Stern recruited two additional Israeli citizens to help him carry out the tasks assigned to him by his handler.

At the request of the agent, Stern enlisted one of his accomplices in printing and hanging fliers of bloodied palm prints with the English phrase: “It will be written in history that children were killed, let’s stand on the right side of history.” The assistant took pictures of himself hanging the fliers in Tel Aviv in early June 2024 and sent the photo evidence to Stern, who then forwarded it to the agent.

Stern also planned in June 2024 to leave a threatening package on the doorstep of Ronen Shaul, Israel’s representative in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but never followed through.

The Iranian agent requested he send a severed animal’s head alongside a flower bouquet to the official. When he was unable to find an animal’s head, the agent changed course and asked him to send a severed doll’s head alongside a knife. Fearing legal repercussions, Stern eventually declined to send the package entirely.

That month, after a period of debate, he also refused to ignite a brushfire in Jerusalem at the agent’s behest.

Stern’s case is one of dozens to come to light over the past two years in which Iranian agents have successfully recruited Israelis into espionage schemes via social media, specifically the Telegram messaging app. Most of the accused spies start out with innocuous tasks that gradually grow into more serious offenses, like intelligence gathering and assassination plots.

Given Stern’s relatively young age when committing the offenses, he will be reviewed for probation before sentencing at the request of his attorney.