The arrest of two Israeli air force personnel on allegations of espionage has underscored Iran’s expanding efforts to penetrate Israel’s military by recruiting operatives from within.

Over the past year and a half, Israeli police, working alongside the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), have investigated more than 20 cases involving an estimated 40 to 50 suspects. Most remain in custody, though investigators believe additional suspects are still at large.

Capt. Sefi Berger of the Israel Police’s Lahav International and Major Crimes Unit, which investigates Iranian espionage cases, told Fox News Digital that Tehran primarily seeks intelligence that could aid attack planning, along with information on high-profile individuals and other sensitive targets.

IRAN ARRESTS DOZENS ACCUSED OF SPYING FOR ISRAEL IN NEW INTERNAL CRACKDOWN

Payments vary widely. One network of seven suspects reportedly received about $300,000, while an Iron Dome reservist was allegedly paid $1,000 — and in some cases, even less.

“People may think they will get rich, but the money is not life-changing,” Berger said. “In one case last year involving two soldiers, one received just $21 and has been in prison for a year and a half.”

Iranian recruitment tactics include infiltrating WhatsApp and Facebook groups used by Israelis seeking freelance work, as well as pornography websites, where agents allegedly use compromising material to blackmail individuals into cooperating. Recruitment also relies on emotional manipulation of individuals whose moral judgment may be compromised.

“When recruiting a person, a relationship can develop between the handler and the spy. Sometimes the asset is looking for a father figure or a friend — someone who listens without judgment,” Berger said.

Former Shin Bet handler Gonen Ben Itzhak, who spent years recruiting sources within Palestinian society, told Fox News Digital that the issue is particularly serious, saying he has not previously seen so many attempts — and some successful cases — of spying against Israel.

IRANIAN REGIME SPREADING ANTI-ISRAEL PROPAGANDA ACROSS DOZENS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS: REPORT

“The million-dollar question is who makes a good recruit. We don’t have a clear answer. There are certain indicators that someone may be more susceptible. The Iranians use social media — something we didn’t have in the same way — and it’s a powerful tool to identify potential motives,” he said.

As a handler, Ben Itzhak said he sought to recruit as many viable candidates as possible while avoiding individuals likely to attract suspicion, such as known criminals. He described the process as gradual and often uncertain.

“At first, they need to agree to meet in secret. Sometimes they come but won’t share information. I would start with simple questions — who leads Hamas in their village,” he said.

“Sometimes it takes time. Some refuse to cooperate, some may even act as double agents. In many cases, they are trained to collect information without being exposed. It’s a process,” Ben Itzhak added.

On Friday, indictments were filed against an Israeli civilian and three soldiers arrested in March on suspicion of working for Iranian intelligence and carrying out security-related missions under its direction before enlisting in the IDF.

As part of the alleged operations, the defendants documented and sent their handlers photos and videos of locations including train stations, shopping centers and security cameras, and were at one point instructed to purchase weapons. They also allegedly transferred documents from the Air Force Technical School, where some of the suspects had studied.

In March, 22-year-old Haifa resident Ami Gaydarov was arrested on suspicion of manufacturing explosives intended to target a senior Israeli figure at the direction of an Iranian agent.

Last month, a man from the Israeli-Arab city of Qalansawe was detained on suspicion of allegedly spying for “a hostile actor, mediated through the Al Jazeera channel.” According to the investigation, Miqdad Moder Hosni Natur made contact with his handler after being introduced while searching for job opportunities through the Qatari-owned news organization.

Under Israeli law, contact with a foreign agent carries a sentence of up to 15 years in prison. Providing intelligence can result in more than 10 years’ imprisonment, while aiding the enemy during wartime carries a minimum sentence of life imprisonment and, in extreme cases, the death penalty.

Berger also warned against attempts by Israelis to deceive foreign agents, stressing that any contact is a serious offense.

DANISH NATIONAL WANTED IN GERMANY ARRESTED AFTER ALLEGEDLY SPYING ON JEWISH TARGETS FOR IRAN

“We had a hotel worker near the Dead Sea who falsely told Iranians that a group of Israelis would arrive. He said it was a lie, but I explained he had effectively put a target on that hotel, its staff and guests, and encouraged an attack,” Berger said.

“People unfamiliar with this world should not engage in it. Contact is an offense, providing information is an offense, and aiding the enemy is the most severe,” he added.

While most suspects remain in custody awaiting trial, some cases are advancing through the courts.

One concluded case involved 70-year-old Moti Maman, who was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison after twice entering Iran, where he met with intelligence agents to discuss carrying out terrorist activity in Israel. He also discussed the possibility of assassinating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Former Mossad operative Gad Shimron told Fox News Digital that while the espionage efforts have caused damage, their impact appears tactical rather than strategic. However, he cautioned against complacency.

“The electronic Iron Dome is trying to catch Israelis willing to work for the Iranians, and I believe it is quite efficient,” he said. “But one should never underestimate the enemy. I am sure they are investing a lot of effort and that they have some successes we don’t yet know of.”

Published on
08/05/2026 – 17:40 GMT+2

Bulgaria’s parliament on Friday formally approved Rumen Radev as the new prime minister in a bid to end political instability and spur economic development in the EU member country.

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

“We have no illusions about the crises and trials facing the government, which will soon be seeking your support – galloping prices, budget, missing reforms, a severe global energy crisis and escalating conflicts,” Radev told lawmakers.

The chamber voted 124-70 with 36 abstentions to elect Radev, a 62-year-old former fighter jet pilot, as prime minister.

Radev resigned from the mostly ceremonial role of president in January, a few months before the end of his second term, to launch a bid to lead the government in the more powerful role as prime minister.

Sofia’s previous conservative government collapsed in December after nationwide anti-corruption protests drew hundreds of thousands of mainly young people to the streets.

Radev’s popularity surged as he cast himself as an opponent of the entrenched mafia and their ties to high-ranking politicians. At campaign rallies he vowed to “remove the corrupt, oligarchic model of governance from political power.”

His Progressive Bulgaria party scored a landslide victory in the 19 April parliamentary election, giving it an outright majority – the first in Bulgaria since 1997 – with 131 seats in the 240-seat legislature.

Radev earned a Master of Strategic Studies degree from the US Air War College in Alabama in 2003, before being appointed Bulgarian air force commander.

His supporters are divided between those hoping he will put an end to the country’s oligarchic corruption and those lining up behind his Eurosceptic and Russia-friendly views.

Although Radev’s pro-Russian stance has raised concerns about Bulgaria’s position in European policymaking, with some political analysts expect his future approach to remain moderate, unlike that of former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

This is largely due to Bulgaria, a poor nation of 6.5 million people, remaining heavily reliant on European funds. Radev’s government is expected to undertake a series of reforms to unlock nearly €400 million in European Union funds.

Additional sources • AP

A system that thousands of schools and universities use was offline Thursday during a cyberattack, creating chaos as students tried to study for finals and underscoring education’s dependence on technology.

The hacking group named ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the breach at Canvas, said Luke Connolly, a threat analyst at the cybersecurity firm Emisoft. Instructure, the company behind Canvas, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment or questions about whether the system was taken down as a precaution or because the hackers knocked it offline.

Canvas is used to manage grades, course notes, assignments, lecture videos and more. The hacking group posted online that nearly 9,000 schools worldwide were affected, with billions of private messages and other records accessed, Connolly said.

Students quickly took to social media to ask if others were unable to access Canvas, with many panicking that they could no longer view course materials housed within the platform to study for their final exams.

Screen shots Connolly provided showed that the group began threatening Sunday to leak the trove of data, giving deadlines of Thursday and May 12. Connolly said the later date indicates that discussions regarding extortion payments may be ongoing.

Rich in digitized data, the nation’s schools are prime targets for far-flung criminal hackers, who are assiduously locating and scooping up sensitive files that not long ago were committed to paper in locked cabinets. Past attacks have hit Minneapolis Public Schools and the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Instructure has not posted about the attack on its social media.

Connolly said the Canvas attack is strikingly similar to a breach at PowerSchool, which also offers learning management tools. In that case a Massachusetts college student was charged.

Connolly described ShinyHunters as a loose affiliation of teenagers and young adults based in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. The group also has been tied to a other attacks, including one aimed at Live Nation’s Ticketmaster subsidiary.

Universities and school districts quickly began notifying students and parents.

“This is being reported as a national-level cyber-security incident,” the director of information technology at the University of Iowa’s College of Public Health wrote in announcing that the school’s online system was down. “Hopefully we will have a resolution soon.”

Virginia Tech acknowledged in a notice to students that the administration was aware of the effect on final exams and other end-of-semester activities. The University of New Mexico sent a similar message to the campus community, and the University of Florida urged students to stay alert for any phishing messages that appear to be from Canvas.

Teachers say they are having to find workarounds to help students study for exams and submit final assignments.

Damon Linker, a senior lecturer in the political science department at the University of Pennsylvania, said in a post on the social media platform X that his students had been relying on Canvas to access every reading from the semester and all of his lecture slides before their Monday final exams. The outage leaves students and faculty “dead in the water here in academia right now,” he said.

The student newspaper at Harvard reported that the system there was down as well. Students at Johns Hopkins University simply got an error message when trying to view their final grades on the platform Thursday. And public school districts also sought to reassure parents, with officials in Spokane, Washington, writing that they aren’t “aware of any sensitive data contained in this breach.”

Some schools, such as the University of Texas at San Antonio, announced they were pushing back finals scheduled for Friday in response to the outage.

___

This story has been corrected to attribute a quote to the director of information technology at the University of Iowa’s College of Public Health, not the university’s broader information technology lead.

___

Associated Press journalist Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City contributed.