Israel’s Shin Bet, police arrest couple over suspected contact with Iran

The Israeli regime’s so-called internal security service, Shin Bet, and police say they have arrested two settlers east of Tel Aviv on charges of espionage for Iran.

The charges also include carrying out a series of acts of sabotage in the occupied territories.

They claimed in a joint statement on Monday that 30-year-old Vladislav Viktorson, a resident of Ramat Gan, was approached by an individual identified as “Mari Hossi” via social media networks last August.

Viktorson then purportedly recruited his 18-year-old partner Anna Bernstein and another unnamed Ramat Gan resident.

The trio allegedly carried out various acts of sabotage and vandalism, including spraying provocative graffiti and putting up posters, setting fire to cars near Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park, and acts of arson in local forests, at the behest of Hossi, who gave them instructions in Hebrew, the statement added.

Later, Viktorson was asked to sabotage communication networks and ATMs and to set fire to forests. He was even tasked with locating homeless individuals for recruitment and photographing protesters during demonstrations.

Viktorson and Bernstein filmed some of the sabotage they engaged in and were paid $5,000.

The statement said Hossi then asked Viktorson to kill a high-profile Israeli figure, whose identity remains unknown, by throwing a hand grenade into his house.

Viktorson agreed to do so and tried to purchase weapons, including sniper rifles, pistols, and grenades, the statement said.

Viktorson and Bernstein were indicted on security offenses, the statement said. Details of the involvement of the third person and their fate were not clear.

On September 19, Shin Bet and the Israeli police said they had arrested a settler on suspicion of involvement in a plot targeting prominent Israelis.

A statement said at the time the individual was a businessman with connections in Turkey, who had attended at least two meetings in Iran to discuss the possibility of assassinating Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant, or the director of Shin Bet Ronen Bar.

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