Four Jerusalem Residents Convicted in Iran-Linked Terror Plot

The Jerusalem District Court convicted four residents of the Beit Safafa neighborhood in Jerusalem on charges of security offenses carried out for an Iranian-linked operative. The convictions followed guilty pleas as part of a plea bargain.

Mamdouh Khader and Omri Abu Hamida were convicted of failing to prevent an act of terror after participating in a trip to the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot. During the trip, they were informed that the mission was received from an Iranian source. Although denied entry to the institute, the group documented their presence there, and the videos were sent to the Iranian contact. Abu Hamida later inquired about the filming, learning it was to target an individual the Iranians wished to assassinate. Neither man took action to prevent the act.

Mahmoud Khader and Muhammad Taha were convicted of aiding contact with a foreign agent. Mahmoud Khader assisted in spraying and documenting addresses in Jerusalem, drove another defendant to receive two grenades, and helped obtain a fake police license plate for staged footage of an attack on a police car. Taha offered to throw a stun grenade at an empty house in the village of Katana to create staged footage of an attack on a Jewish home. He brought the grenade to the location, asked others to throw it, documented the act, and sent the video to the defendant in contact with the Iranian operative. In another instance, Taha kept the phone used for communication with the Iranian operative to hinder its tracking.

The indictment stated that an operative acting for Iran contacted another defendant in the case and assigned him tasks, for payment, aimed at harming state security. These tasks included establishing a terror cell, assassinating a nuclear scientist and his family, acquiring weapons and grenades, and creating staged documentation of attacks on a soldier's home and a police car.