Israeli security experts say that Iran has been expanding its efforts to recruit both Jews and Arabs to carry out espionage and attack missions across the country.
Several cases of espionage by Iran were uncovered by Israel's Shin Bet over the last year, most of them implicating Israeli Jews. But the most recent affair, disclosed Tuesday by the Shin Bet and Israel Police, implicates seven residents of east Jerusalem, from the Palestinian Beit Safafa neighborhood.
The seven suspects from Beit Safafa were indicted Wednesday for plotting to kill an Israeli nuclear scientist and collaborating with an enemy state. The seven were arrested last month following a joint investigation by the Shin Bet and Jerusalem Police. According to a joint statement issued on Tuesday, one of the seven was contacted by an Iranian agent. The suspect agreed to cooperate with the agent and then recruited six other people from his neighborhood. The seven were tasked with gathering intelligence on a senior Israeli scientist and a mayor of a city in the center of Israel, with the intention of killing them later, according to the charges. They were also tasked with torching vehicles in Jerusalem's Ein Karem neighborhood, spraying graffiti and throwing a grenade at the home of an Israeli security official.
Other espionage affairs that were disclosed in recent months included the following:
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