Dead Sea hotel employee indicted for spying for Iran

Yosef Ein Eli had allegedly been in contact with Tehran’s intelligence for about a year before being caught.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A Jewish man who worked in a hotel at the Dead Sea was indicted Sunday in the Beersheba District Court on charges of spying for Iran’s intelligence services since the end of 2024.

Yosef Ein Eli, 23, a resident of Tiberias, allegedly carried out several missions for his Tehran handlers, including providing information about and photos of hotels in his area of employment, as well as information about tourist sites farther south.

His motivation was purely monetary, as he received about NIS 10,000 for his work through digital means, according to the investigators in Israel’s General Security Service (Shabak), who arrested him in September in a joint operation with the National Unit for the Investigation of Serious and International Crime.

In his interrogation, they said, he also revealed that the Iranians had wanted him to carry out far more serious tasks, which he refused to do.

These included establishing a terrorist “operations team,” passing on information about criminal elements and crime families in Israel, gathering intelligence on National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, turning over the details of IDF soldiers, and taking photographs from inside IDF bases.

In addition, he was asked to perform such direct violent acts as setting fire to vehicles and throwing a grenade at a residence.

According to a report in Mako, Ein Eli is rejecting the charges of having worked for Iran, with his lawyer, David Nir, saying, “The described acts are vehemently denied by him, and it appears that this is a case of mistaken identity.”

Upon the indictment, the police and Shabak said in a joint statement, “We once again warn the citizens and residents of the State of Israel against having contact with foreign elements from enemy countries or unidentified elements, let alone carrying out missions for them in exchange for payment.”

“Security forces will continue to act resolutely to bring to justice citizens who act in collaboration with hostile elements.”

Israeli authorities have uncovered dozens of cases of Israeli Jews knowingly committing security offenses against the state by performing tasks for Iranian intelligence during the past two years of war with the Islamic Republic’s terror proxies, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, as well as directly with Iran itself.

Iran launched two heavy missile attacks on Israel last year, with the IDF first responding by destroying its enemy’s air defenses, and then in June’s Operation Rising Lion, when it leveled most of Iran’s nuclear and missile development sites in dozens of airstrikes over 12 days.