Israeli-American Arrested Over Spying for Iran on Halevi and Ben-Gvir

An Israeli-American dual citizen was arrested in Israel on suspicion of carrying out espionage for Iranian intelligence, the Israeli authorities announced on 25 September 2025, according to the statement issued through the Press Service of Israel. The Israel Police and the Israel Security Agency, the domestic intelligence service known in Hebrew as the Shin Bet, named the suspect as Yaakov Perel, 49, who had lived in Morocco in recent years, and said he had gathered information on Israeli public figures and citizens at the direction of Tehran.

Investigators said the case began long before the arrest. As early as 2017, while living in Morocco, Perel contacted the Iranian embassy in Rabat to ask for asylum for himself and his family, the statement said. Receiving no answer, he went on engaging with Iranian-linked platforms online, and during 2023 published articles critical of Israel and Zionism on Iranian news channels via the messaging app Telegram.

The article that changed the relationship

According to the Shin Bet, the cooperation intensified after Perel published a supportive piece following the funeral of the Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah. “Following the publication of this article, he received a contact from an Iranian official who offered him cooperation, and Perel agreed,” the statement said. Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut in September 2024; Al Jazeera reported his public funeral being held at a Beirut stadium on 23 February 2025.

Before returning to Israel, the statement said, Perel tried to recruit others at home and abroad to help with intelligence gathering. When that failed he returned himself in July 2025, after renewing his Israeli passport. “Shortly after his arrival in Israel, he began carrying out a variety of security missions under the guidance of Iranian intelligence officials, while passing on information about Israeli public figures and citizens, including former Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir,” the statement said. He is also accused of photographing and filming streets and public areas and of taking payment in cryptocurrency. Investigators said he acted knowing the potential harm to Israel’s security and out of ideological opposition to Zionism. An indictment was expected in the Tel Aviv District Court within days.

How Iranian handlers recruit inside Israel

The Israel Police spokesperson Dean Elsdunne described the pattern to the Press Service of Israel: “It starts out slowly, with small jobs, and slowly the money increases, and they are asked to do more severe crimes as time goes on.” In most cases, the release said, recruits are first asked to spray particular graffiti; assignments escalate to putting up flyers, starting fires, photographing shopping centres, infrastructure, military bases or the homes of public figures, and in some cases to killing someone.

The volume is unusual. In a review published in January 2026 and reported by the Jerusalem Post, the Shin Bet said 25 Israelis and foreign residents were indicted for spying for Iran during 2025 and that 120 separate Iranian espionage operations were thwarted, with recruitment attempts up roughly 400 per cent on 2024, itself a year that had risen 400 per cent on what came before. The release under discussion put the number charged in 2025 at more than 30. Most Jewish Israelis who took part did so for money, the Shin Bet said.

The Times of Israel, reporting the same case on 25 September 2025, noted that recruitment typically runs through social media and Telegram, and that Israel has opened a dedicated wing at Damon prison in the Haifa area for the growing number of such detainees.

The war in the background

The release framed the case against Israel’s confrontation with Iran. Israel launched strikes on Iranian nuclear sites on 13 June 2025, citing intelligence that Tehran had reached what officials called a point of no return in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. The Times of Israel summarised the resulting 12 days of fighting on 24 June 2025: 28 people killed in Israel and more than 3,000 hospitalised, around 550 Iranian ballistic missiles and about 1,000 drones launched, and 31 missile impacts in populated areas.

What the statement did not say

It did not say how much Perel was paid, which streets or sites he is said to have filmed, or how the case came to the security services’ attention. No lawyer for Perel is quoted and no plea is recorded; at the time of the announcement no indictment had been filed. The release dated Nasrallah’s funeral to January 2025, while contemporaneous reporting places the public funeral on 23 February 2025.