Israel says 7 citizens caught spying for Iran after sharing info that could “aid enemy missile attacks”
Jerusalem — Israeli police on Monday said they had arrested seven Israeli citizens accused of being a spy network gathering information on Israel’s military bases and energy infrastructure for Iranian intelligence.
The internal security agency and police “successfully dismantled a spy network involving seven Israeli citizens who were operating on behalf of Iranian intelligence,” the police said in a statement, adding that all seven had been arrested. The seven Israelis were from the city of Haifa and other northern areas of the country.
“This network was engaged in gathering sensitive information on IDF (military) bases and energy infrastructure,” it said.
Israeli investigations had revealed that the group carried out several missions under the direction of two Iranian agents known as “Alkhan and Orkhan” over a period of two years, the police said.
Iran-backed group Hezbollah had targeted Netanyahu’s private residence in central Israel with a drone attack, but he and his wife were not home at the time, and there were no casualties. Israeli officials did not link the attack to the alleged Iranian espionage efforts.
Israeli media identified the man accused in the assassination plot as Mordechai Maman of the coastal city of Ashkelon. Maman was a businessman who lived in Turkey and had visited Iran, police said at the time.
Israeli strikes hit near Beirut airport as conflict in Lebanon grows
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Israel is currently engaged in a multi-front conflict with Iran-backed groups including Hezbollah, Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Fighting on all those fronts was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, which saw militants murder some 1,200 people and take 251 others back into Gaza as hostages.
The war in Gaza alone has killed more than 42,000 people, according to the decimated Palestinian enclave’s Hamas-run health ministry, while Lebanese officials say a month of relentless Israeli airstrikes and ground operations has killed almost 2,000 people and displaced some 1.2 million from their homes.
Israel has also vowed to retaliate over a missile attack launched by Iran on October 1.
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Source: cbsnews.com