Some 25 Israelis indicted for spying for Iran in 2025, Shin Bet reveals
The silhouette of a man, seen over the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran (illustrative) (photo credit: SHUTTERSTOCK)
In a separate arena, the Shin Bet reported that 130 Israeli-Arabs were indicted for terror-related offenses, while 219 were arrested.
A stunningly high 25 Israelis (including Jews) and foreigners residing in Israel were indicted for spying for Iran in 2025, the Shin Bet announced in its annual report.
The number of Iranian plots to use Israelis as spies jumped by 400% in 2025 as compared to 2024, which itself had also seen a jump of 400% from 2023 and earlier years.
According to the Shin Bet, 120 separate Iranian spying activities were thwarted.
Most of the Jewish-Israelis who spied for Iran did so for money and undertook taking photos of certain installations or other information gathering.
In a separate arena, the Shin Bet reported that 130 Israeli-Arabs were indicted for terror-related offenses, while 219 were arrested.
Shin Bet Director David Zini seen on November 3, 2025 (credit: MOSHE SHAI/FLASH90)
Report says Israeli-Arabs swore allegiance to ISIS in 40 cases
The report said that there were 40 cases where some Israeli-Arabs swore allegiance to or undertook activities for ISIS.
Also, the report said that around 20 Israeli-Arab minors were interrogated for terror connections, especially helping them with artificial intelligence content, likely related to “phishing” activities to try to hack various Israeli electronic accounts.
Collectively, Israeli-Arabs were involved in five actual terror attacks being carried out.
Besides Israeli-Arab citizens, 129 east Jerusalem residents were arrested under suspicion of terror-related offenses.
2,530 West Bank Palestinians were arrested under terror suspicions from Shin Bet enforcement activities.
Regarding Gaza terrorists, in 2025, the agency conducted 300 full-fledged interrogations in its facilities,
In addition, 1,250 Gaza terrorists were interrogated at the joint IDF-Shin Bet’s Sde Teiman facility.
Information obtained frm these interrgations helped locate senior Hamas officials and Israeli hostages, said the agency.
In numbers terms, the Shin Bet was involved in killing 1,200 Gazan terrorists in 2025 of the close to 2,500 killed.
Over 200 of those terrorists killed with Shin Bet involvement were at various command levels, with six top Hamas leaders, including Mohammed Sinwar, who led Hamas October 2025-May 2025, Raad Saad who was number two in Hamas from around May 2025-December 2025, and Rafah brigade commander Mohammed Shabanah.
The Shin Bet did not include statistics about nationalist Jewish violence in the annual report.
The Jerusalem Post requested the data, but the agency had not replied by press time.
Despite that lack of reply, the IDF on Monday admitted that Israel’s security forces had failed in 2025 to sufficiently reduce the volume of Jewish extremist violence against West Bank Palestinians.
In 2025, the number of “nationalistic” Jewish incidents, a term the IDF uses to refer to both violent attacks and vandalism targeting Palestinian property, spiked to 867, up from 682 incidents in 2024.
Although the IDF noted that the number of incidents was still lower than the 1,045 in 2023 and the 922 in 2022, it was still a far cry from the 446 total in 2021, 353 in 2020, and 339 in 2019.
Beyond the raw numbers, the IDF also acknowledged that the number of more serious, dangerous incidents, and especially of mass attacks, as opposed to an attack by one or two individuals, went up even more.
