Israel arrests citizen plotting to kill PM Netanyahu

Israeli police have arrested its citizen who was allegedly recruited by Iranian intelligence to plot the assassinations of heavy weight Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The police revealed this in a joint statement on Thursday.

According to the statement, an Israeli citizen was smuggled twice into Iran and received payment for carrying out missions.

The statement said that Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, as well as other top officials, were among the targets.

The police said the Israeli citizen, who is 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.

According to the police, 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.

Investigation revealed in August that the arrested man was smuggled into Iran in a lorry and 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 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.

However, Israel has not commented on the killing.

The police further said that the suspect was also asked to perform additional tasks, including recruiting members of Israel’s Mossad spy agency as double agents, police said.