Israel’s police arrested an Israeli citizen allegedly recruited by Iranian intelligence to plot the assassinations of top Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a joint statement by the police and Shin Bet said Thursday.
“An Israeli citizen was recruited by Iranian intelligence to promote assassinations of Israeli figures. He was smuggled twice into Iran and received payment for carrying out missions,” the statement said.
It said that Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar as well as other top officials were among the targets.
The Israeli citizen, “a businessman who lived in Turkey for an extended period,” maintained connections with Turkish and Iranian individuals who introduced him by phone to an Iranian businessman called Eddie, the police said.
They said the Israeli — reported by local media to be a Jewish person from the city of Ashkelon — first visited Iran in May 2024 to meet Eddie, after he had “difficulty leaving” Iran.
He also met someone called Hajjah, who was introduced as an Iranian security operative.
The police said he was asked during this trip to carry out security missions in Israel, including transferring “money or a gun”, taking pictures of crowded public places and threatening other Israelis recruited by Tehran.
In August, the investigation found the arrested man was smuggled to Iran in a lorry. While there “he met with additional Iranian intelligence agents and was asked by them to carry out terrorist activities for Iran on Israeli soil, including promoting assassination attacks”.
Some of the proposed assassinations were characterised as being revenge for the killing of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.
Iran and Hamas have accused Israel of being behind Haniyeh’s death. Israel has not commented on the killing.
The suspect was also asked to perform additional tasks, including recruiting members of Israel’s Mossad spy agency to be double agents, police said.
After asking for a $1 million advance, the Israeli individual was given 5,000 euros for taking part in the meetings and told he would be contacted in the future.
“This is a very serious case that exemplifies the enormous efforts of Iranian intelligence agents to recruit Israeli citizens to promote terrorist activities in Israel”, a senior Shin Bet official was quoted as saying.