Israel has arrested two army reservists accused of spying for Iran, including on the Iron Dome air defence system.

Police and Shin Bet, the security service, said that the main suspect, Yuri Eliasfov, 21, served in the Iron Dome unit and was paid to pass classified information to an Iranian handler from September last year. He recruited a friend, Georgi Andreyev, also 21, a statement said.

The arrests are the latest in a series of recent cases involving suspects alleged to have been spying for Iran.

The background of the latest suspects has not been made public but previous reports spoke of Iranian recruitment activities among Israelis with family backgrounds in the Caucasus, which abuts northern Iran.

A boy on a donkey near an Iron Dome missile defense system in the Negev desert.

One of the batteries of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system in the southern Negev desert

AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

One alleged spy in September was said to have been involved in a plot to assassinate Israeli leaders, including the prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. He was accused of receiving a down payment and of being smuggled into Iran from Turkey to receive instructions.

In October, six Arab-Israelis and an Arab resident of Israel were accused of sabotage missions. Their goal was said to be the assassination of an Israeli nuclear scientist.

Police said Eliasfov and Andreyev would be charged in the coming days. They are also accused of hanging banners with the slogan “Children of Ruhollah”, a reference to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the late founding father of the Islamic Republic, and of spraying pro-Iranian graffiti.

A crowd of people raising their hands in prayer in front of a large portrait of Ayatollah Khomeini.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini founded the Islamic Republic

VAHID SALEMI/AP

Iran has been repeatedly humiliated by the ease with which Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence agency, has been able to conduct operations on Iranian territory, including assassinations of nuclear scientists and other senior regime figures, and sabotage of sensitive military installations. In July, a bomb killed Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, in a guest house in a secure presidential compound in the capital Tehran.