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Israeli Accused of Helping Iran Plot Assassination of Netanyahu, Other Top Officials
Israeli citizen Moti Maman stands in a courtroom after he was accused by Israeli security services of involvement in an Iranian-backed assassination plot targeting prominent people including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Beersheba District Court in southern Israel, Sept. 19, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
Israeli security services said on Thursday they had arrested an Israeli citizen on suspicion of involvement in an Iranian–backed assassination plot targeting prominent people including the prime minister.
A statement said the person was a businessman with connections in Turkey who had attended at least two meetings in Iran to discuss the possibility of assassinating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, or the head of the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency.
The arrest took place last month, according to a joint statement by Shin Bet and the Israeli police.
The suspect was identified in Israeli media reports as Moti Maman, 73, from the southern coastal city of Ashkelon
The incident highlights an intelligence war running alongside the escalating conflict on Israel’s border with southern Lebanon.
Last week, Shin Bet uncovered what it said was a plot by Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, to assassinate a former senior defense official, who was subsequently identified as the former army Chief of Staff and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon.
The announcement of the arrest came a day after Hezbollah was hit for a second day running by a sophisticated attack that detonated communications equipment remotely.
Blasts in handheld radios killed at least 20 people and wounding more than 450. A day earlier, hundreds of Hezbollah pager devices exploded simultaneously, killing 12 people and injuring thousands.
Israel has not commented directly on those attacks, but multiple security sources have said Israel’s spy agency Mossad was responsible.
Israel has a long history of intelligence operations in Iran, allegedly including the assassination in July of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in a Tehran state guesthouse.
Shin Bet said the latest arrest showed the efforts Iran was making to recruit Israelis to gather intelligence and carry out terrorist missions in Israel, including by using individuals with criminal backgrounds.
According to the Shin Bet statement, the plot went back to April this year when the Israeli agreed to meet a wealthy businessman living in Iran for business purposes.
After being told by representatives that the businessman, identified only as Adi by the security services, could not leave Iran, the Israeli man was smuggled into Iran from eastern Turkey, where he met Adi and others, including a man identified as an Iranian security official, the statement said.
The Iranians proposed that he carry out tasks for Iran including transferring money or a gun, photographing crowded places or threatening other Israeli civilians operating on behalf of Iran who did not carry out the requested missions.
He returned to Israel but went back to Iran for a second time in August, smuggled in a truck, the statement said.
On the second visit, it said Iranian officials asked him to carry out terrorist attacks for Iran and made proposals for assassinating Netanyahu or Gallant or Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar as well as other operations.
The Israeli man asked for a payment of $1 million, but Iranian officials refused the request, saying however they would remain in touch and paying him 5,000 euros ($5,570.50) for joining the meetings.
The post Israeli Accused of Helping Iran Plot Assassination of Netanyahu, Other Top Officials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Pope Calls Gaza Airstrikes ‘Cruelty’ After Israeli Minister’s Criticism
Pope Francis waves after delivering his traditional Christmas Day Urbi et Orbi speech to the city and the world from the main balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, December 25, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi
Pope Francis on Saturday again condemned Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, a day after an Israeli government minister publicly denounced the pontiff for suggesting the global community should study whether the military offensive there constitutes a genocide of the Palestinian people.
Francis opened his annual Christmas address to the Catholic cardinals who lead the Vatican’s various departments with what appeared to be a reference to Israeli airstrikes on Friday that killed at least 25 Palestinians in Gaza.
“Yesterday, children were bombed,” said the pope. “This is cruelty. This is not war. I wanted to say this because it touches the heart.”
The pope, as leader of the 1.4-billion-member Roman Catholic Church, is usually careful about taking sides in conflicts, but he has recently been more outspoken about Israel’s military campaign against Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
In book excerpts published last month, the pontiff said some international experts said that “what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide.”
Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli sharply criticized those comments in an unusual open letter published by Italian newspaper Il Foglio on Friday. Chikli said the pope’s remarks amounted to a “trivialization” of the term genocide.
Francis also said on Saturday that the Catholic bishop of Jerusalem, known as a patriarch, had tried to enter the Gaza Strip on Friday to visit Catholics there, but was denied entry.
The patriarch’s office told Reuters it was not able to comment on the pope’s remarks about the patriarch being denied entry.
Israeli officials were not immediately reachable for comment on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, and the Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The post Pope Calls Gaza Airstrikes ‘Cruelty’ After Israeli Minister’s Criticism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Pledges to Implement Lessons from Failure to Intercept Houthi Missile
Iranian-backed Yemeni terrorist leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi. Photo: Screenshot
i24 News – The Israeli military said on Saturday that while the investigation into the failure to intercept the missile that hit Tel Aviv early in the morning was still ongoing, some lessons were already being implemented. The ballistic missile, fired by Yemen’s Houthi jihadists, landed at a playground in a residential area, leading to 16 people sustaining injuries from glass shards.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson said that “some of the conclusions have already been implemented, in regards of both interception and early warning.”
The spokesperson added that “no further details regarding aerial defense activities and the alert system can be disclosed due to operational security considerations.”
The Houthis have repeatedly fired drones and missiles towards Israel in what they describe as “acts of solidarity” with Palestinians in Gaza.
The post IDF Pledges to Implement Lessons from Failure to Intercept Houthi Missile first appeared on Algemeiner.com.