Tahani Abu Samhan, 33, a teacher from the Beduin village of Abu Talul, located about 10 km. from Beersheba, was indicted on Thursday for spying for Iran, on charges of contact with a foreign agent and passing on information to the enemy. She was arrested on June 29 by the Israel Police and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), and her arrest was extended once.
Abh Samhan joins a growing list of Israeli citizens who knowingly carried out assignments and committed acts at the instruction of Iranian agents.
Since the October 7 massacre, Iran’s fight with Israel took a heightened stance – in its proxy wars, in direct confrontations, and in more than 30 individual spy operations that authorities have uncovered this far.
As the war dragged on, Iran and Israel fought each other directly three times: The first on April 13-14, 2024; the second on September 1, 2024; and the third, spanning over two weeks this past June, when Israel targeted Iranian military and nuclear sites.
Just a few weeks after the second Iran attack, at some point during October-November 2024, Tahani received a message on the Telegram app from an Iranian agent who identified himself as “Abu Mahmad.”
He asked her to put together a summary of the main news events in Israel. She refused to do so herself, but explained to him how to go about garnering such information via Telegram news channels and Facebook.
She didn’t receive any payment for passing on this information
After this first interaction, the two spoke and decided that he would transfer a secure phone to her to enable them to handle operations from Israel discreetly.
In November, she collected the phone, along with NIS 3,000, from a specific location the agent sent her to in Beersheba.
Several days later, the agent instructed her to take NIS 1,000 of the stash and hide it at a location of her choice. She hid it in a park in Beersheba and sent the agent a photo of it, using the secure phone.
Later on, between January and March of this year, the agent gave her a similar assignment: Collect NIS 5,000 from an area next to the Negev Zoo in Beersheba, and pick up a phone from a different location in the city. The agent asked her to store the cash and the phone – rather than drop it off somewhere else.
After this assignment, Abu Samhan began to receive threats from an unknown man who threatened to inform her husband of her actions. She cut off all contact with the agent.
The contact was renewed sometime between April and May.
The agent ordered her to hide the money that she had picked up months earlier in a park in Beersheba. She did so, sending him a confirmation photo.
After this assignment, the agent asked her to choose a location from which to pick up another cell phone. She chose the location of a main road in Beersheba, and informed the agent of her choice.
But, a few days later, he called the assignment off.
When direct attacks between Israel and Iran began in June, the agent asked Abu Samhan to pass on photos of Israeli fighter jets; he knew she lived close to the Nevatim air force base.
She indeed took the pictures, but never sent them.
A short while later, he told her to purchase a camera and set it up near Nevatim, at a specific location on Highway 25. She responded that she didn’t have the money for it.
In a different instance – just a few days before she was arrested – the agent asked her if she could see fighter jets in the sky. She responded that she could hear them.
On June 28, just one day before her arrest, the agent assigned her to collect a backpack that contained military equipment and take it to another specified location. She did not do so.
The indictment notes that the news summary the agent had requested and the photo Abu Samhan sent of the money hidden in the Beersheba park were both pieces of information that directly served the enemy.