The Jerusalem District Court on Wednesday convicted four residents of Beit Safafa — Mamdouh Hader, Mahmoud Hader, Muhammad Taha, and Omari Abu Hamida — of carrying out tasks for an Iranian handler in exchange for money. Their missions included obtaining grenades, faking an attack on a police vehicle and a Jewish home, and gathering intelligence on a nuclear scientist as part of a plot to assassinate him and his family, the court said.
Wednesday's conviction is the latest in a string of Israeli prosecutions of individuals recruited by Iranian intelligence. According to the indictment, the four defendants, all residents of the Beit Safafa neighborhood in Jerusalem, were tasked with a series of operations over several months: procuring grenades, staging a fake attack on a police car and later an attack on a Jewish home to create chaos, and collecting detailed intelligence on an Israeli nuclear scientist for a planned assassination targeting both the scientist and his family.
The court found that the defendants acted for financial gain, receiving payment from their Iranian handler. The plot to assassinate the nuclear scientist — described by the court as a core mission — did not reach the execution stage, but the intelligence-gathering phase was already under way.
The case adds to a growing pattern of Iranian attempts to recruit Israeli citizens, including Arab Israelis and residents of East Jerusalem, for espionage and attack missions. In recent months, Israeli courts have handed down sentences in several similar cases, including an 8.5-year term for a Haifa resident who spied for Iran and a seven-year term for another operative, as The Zioneer has reported.
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