Man caught spying on Gallant and other targets for Iran given 4.5 years behind bars
Fares Abu al-Hija, who received about $3,600 for tasks, suspected his contact was an Iranian agent but failed to investigate the matter, court says
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on Google
The Haifa District Court on Tuesday sentenced a man to four and a half years in prison for spying on behalf of Iran, including making a recording near the home of former defense minister Yoav Gallant.
Fares Abu al-Hija, 32, from the small Arab town of Kaukab in northern Israel, was convicted of contact with a foreign agent as part of a plea deal and sentenced to 55 months.
He was accused of carrying out several tasks for Iran between October 2025 and January 2026, ending with the mission outside Gallant’s home in northern Israel’s Amikam, where Abu al-Hija was arrested.
Other tasks included recording a Tel Aviv cafe and hiding cellphones, money and a password for a cryptocurrency wallet. The tasks earned Abu al-Hija a total of some $3,600, prosecutors said.
Abu al-Hija received the tasks and the payments from an account he corresponded with on Telegram. He suspected the contact was an Iranian agent, but neglected to investigate the matter, the court said.
The court said Abu al-Hija had no prior criminal record and expressed regret for his actions. He was given two years’ probation in addition to his jail time.
Israel has, over the past two years, arrested dozens of people on suspicion of carrying out acts on behalf of Iran in exchange for money. The suspects typically make initial contact with Iranian agents through social media, especially the messaging platform Telegram.
The tasks typically begin with low-level acts such as graffiti and sometimes escalate to espionage and even assassination plots.
Last week, the Lod District Court sentenced a Petah Tikva man to 13.5 years in prison for espionage and vandalism on behalf of Iran, the harshest such sentence yet.
The Times of Israel Community.