Times: How is the "spy war" between Israel and Iran going?

The Times newspaper published a report by its defense and security correspondent, George Grylls, from Tel Aviv, in which he said that according to prosecutors, Israelis received hundreds of thousands of pounds in cryptocurrency from Iran, to take pictures of sensitive military sites.

There is mounting evidence of a successful espionage operation by Tehran, the newspaper explained, as the Nevatim Air Base, which was hit by Iranian ballistic missiles this month, the Golani training base, where four soldiers were killed in a Hezbollah drone attack, and Israel’s Iron Dome air defense batteries were all surveyed by alleged Iranian spies.

Seven Jewish Israeli citizens from Haifa, including an army deserter and minors, were also arrested following an investigation by the Shin Bet security service, the domestic intelligence agency and the Israel Police. According to prosecutors, some of the suspects had been spying for up to two years.

The latest arrests have highlighted an escalating spy war in the Middle East as Israel prepares to respond to Iran’s latest ballistic missile barrage. Top-secret US documents detailing Israeli military drills were leaked to a pro-Iran Telegram channel on Friday, in the most serious security breach yet.

Spies for hire

In Israel, Tehran appears to have recruited dozens of agents by exploiting the homeless, drug addicts and criminals. A man named Vladimir Varkovsky, 35, was arrested last week in Tel Aviv after he went so far as to obtain a gun after negotiating a $100,000 fee with his Iranian handlers to kill an Israeli scientist.

The newspaper pointed out that the Israeli security forces arrested Vladislav Viktorson (30 years old) and his partner Anna Bernstein (18 years old) a few days ago on charges of receiving $20 for each piece of anti-Benjamin Netanyahu graffiti they wrote in Ramat Gan and Petah Tikva.

Last month, Israeli businessman Moti Maman, 72, was implicated in a more serious case, accused of traveling to Iran demanding $1 million to help assassinate Netanyahu.

By offering huge sums of money to potential traitors, Tehran appears to have learned from recent Mossad intelligence operations. Yossi Cohen, the former Mossad chief, provided a rare glimpse into operations in Iran during a farewell interview three years ago, when he revealed a 2018 theft of Iran’s nuclear archives carried out by 20 agents, none of whom were Israeli.

“It is very normal for Iranians who are suffering from the regime to go to the Mossad or the CIA and sell them some information, or put something somewhere or take a picture of a neighbor who might be a scientist or a commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard,” said Bani Sabti, 52, a Tehran-born Jew.

“There are millions of Iranians who want to cooperate with Israel,” he said. “No one earns much, yet the apartments are expensive. It’s like the dying days of the Soviet Union. Why be a cheap worker with a low salary when you can be a spy?”

Sabti, an adviser to the Israeli military on its Persian production, is also an adviser on the TV series “Tehran,” an Israeli thriller about an Iranian-born Jewish woman who returns to her homeland to spy for Mossad, a story based more on fiction than reality, he said.

Tehran often tries to coerce members of its Jewish minority into carrying out covert and psychological operations against Israel, sharing images of the community protesting Israel's response to the October 7 attacks.

Last year, Israel's internal security service detained a young Iranian Jew visiting family in Israel and deported him to Iran after he was found to be smuggling surveillance equipment inside a tissue box.

Iranian Israelis often find themselves caught in the tug-of-war between the Middle East’s superpowers. “I get messages all the time on Facebook and Instagram from people saying, ‘Please get us out,’ or ‘Tell Bibi to keep going,’ or ‘Inshallah the regime will change and you can come and sing here,’” said Hannah Jahan Foroz, 53, a singer from Tel Aviv.

Jahan Forouz was born in Tehran, and her Jewish family traveled across the mountainous border with Pakistan to escape the regime in 1983. Her Persian-language songs, steeped in mysticism, have a large fan base in her country of birth, and Iranians often ask her to communicate with Mossad.

Despite her love for the Iranian people, Jahan Forouz has no qualms about how Israel is handling the threat from Iran in the wake of the recent ballistic missile attack. “When you have to shoot, shoot first,” she said.