Former police interpreter indicted on espionage charges after allegedly sharing details on missile impacts with foreign agent

An Arab Israeli man from Qalansawe has been indicted on espionage charges today after allegedly compiling reports for a foreign agent detailing damage and casualties caused by Iranian missile attacks.

According to the indictment, 47-year-old Miqdad Natur, came into contact with the agent, who went by the pseudonym “Abu Ali,” while searching for work last summer. He reached out to Al Jazeera on Telegram in hopes of being employed by the network as an interpreter, despite it being banned in Israel, but was rejected.

Someone from the news channel referred Natur to Abu Ali, and the two began to correspond.

At the agent’s direction, Natur opened an Arabic-language Telegram channel called “Breaking News,” where he would publish news items handpicked by the agent for a monthly payment of $250. This continued from September 2025 to January 2026.

For reasons unknown to the prosecutors, Abu Ali broke off contact with the defendant in February but reached out to him again after the outbreak of the ongoing war, this time asking him to compile reports on damage and casualties caused by Iranian missile impacts.

The agent also requested information on water, electricity and internet outages in Israel, the locations and damage caused by missile impacts, and the rate of expatriation.

Though the agent repeatedly asked Natur to physically go to missile impact sites to document their location and the resulting damage, the defendant was unable to do this, and rather sent him news reports that had already been published.

According to the indictment, Natur formerly worked as an interpreter for the Israel Police, the Israel Prisons Service, and other legal and government bodies.

The Shin Bet security service and police conducted a joint investigation into Natur and police eventually arrested him on March 9. He was indicted today in the Lod-Central District Court on charges of maintaining contact with a foreign intelligence agent, espionage and destroying evidence.