According to the indictment, contact with the alleged agent, who called himself Abu Bakar, was via the Telegram app and the Session private messaging app.<\/p>\n
\t On March 19, he allegedly held a video call with his Iranian handler while he was close to the Tira municipality. During the call, he showed the agent the building and the police station and also sent the agent videos of both sites, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n When the agent later in the month asked him to obtain information on other sites, he allegedly refused, telling his handler that he \u201cis waiting for results\u201d at the first place he sent, meaning the city hall and police station, and that he wants \u201cthat this place be the first target.\u201d<\/p>\n Police said Bakar confessed to the offences he is accused of during interrogation.<\/p>\n Police and the Shin Bet security service said in a statement that the case \u201cjoins a series of recent cases that demonstrate repeated efforts by terrorist and hostile intelligence elements to recruit Israeli citizens to carry out missions intended to harm the security of the State of Israel and its residents.\u201d<\/p>\n They warned citizens \u201cagainst maintaining contact with foreign elements and carrying out missions for them. All security agencies and enforcement agencies will work to bring to justice all those involved in such activity.\u201d<\/p>\n Recent years have seen scores of ordinary Israelis arrested on suspicion of carrying out tasks, usually intelligence gathering and vandalism, at the behest of Iran-linked agents they met online.<\/p>\n Iranian agents usually start out their recruits with relatively mundane tasks such as vandalism or the filming of public locations, which then escalate into more severe, sometimes even violent offenses.<\/p>\n
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