On Thursday morning, it was allowed to publish that the Shin Bet and police forces arrested a suspect in espionage through an Iranian agency a few weeks ago, a particularly serious offense in wartime, against which a serious indictment was filed in court. The suspect has cooperated so far in his investigation, from which there is a fairly clear picture of the efforts exerted by the Iranian intelligence agencies to try and harm Israel, and to sow chaos within it.
According to the details published so far, this is a Jewish businessman, over the age of 70, who has recently become embroiled in significant financial debts and therefore turned to criminal avenues for obtaining capital. The suspect came into contact with foreign agents through social media, and traveled twice to Iran through Turkey and Cyprus to meet his operators Eye-to-Eye. Iranian agents allegedly asked him to assassinate a senior Israeli figure – Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Galant, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar or former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett – in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In his interrogation, the suspect told how the Iranian agents tried to exert psychological pressure on him, claiming that by carrying out his mission, he would effectively prevent a war between Iran and Israel, because Iran would be satisfied and fulfill its commitment to the “revenge” of killing Ismail Haniya two months ago. The suspect claimed that he did not really intend to carry out the assassinations, but only to fool the Iranians and get money from them – but there is no telling whether this is true. In any case, he was arrested immediately upon his return to Israel after his last visit to Iran.
This publication comes, and not coincidentally, a few days after the publication of details of the affair that took place a year ago in Tel Aviv, during which a bomb exploded in Yarkon Park without casualties; It was now reported that this was a bomb placed there by a number of Israeli Arabs who were operated by Hezbollah (against whom an indictment was filed), with the target of the assassination being the former Chief of Staff and Defense Minister Bogey Ya’alon. That affair, together with this affair, and with the news coming from Lebanon about the brilliant intelligence operation that hit thousands of Hezbollah operatives, sends the enemya message Israel’s intelligence power. And to us as Israelis, they need to clarify the weakness of our enemies, and the strategy our enemies use in order to weaken us, without success.
