Overview
- The State Attorney’s Office filed a juvenile indictment on Sunday charging two boys from Kiryat Motzkin, ages 14 and 16, with contact with a foreign agent and multiple espionage-related counts.
- Prosecutors say the pair were recruited over Telegram in June 2026 by an online handler who identified himself as “Daniel” and later acknowledged ties to Iran.
- Assigned tasks escalated from handing out flyers and sending ID photos to photographing shopping malls in Herzliya and Tel Aviv and reporting numbers of entrances, exits and security guards.
- Investigators say one teen tried to recruit others and impersonated an IDF Unit 8200 soldier to win more assignments, while both sprayed graffiti and sent documentation to the handler.
- Police units led a covert probe that included an arrest at Ben Gurion Airport and prosecutors say the teens were paid hundreds of shekels, including transfers by cryptocurrency, prompting warnings to parents and tighter scrutiny of online recruitment.