The Jerusalem District Court on Thursday sentenced Elimelech Stern to three years in prison after convicting him of maintaining contact with an Iranian intelligence operative and conspiring to issue threats, in a case the court described as part of a broader and intensifying Iranian effort to recruit Israeli citizens during wartime.
Stern was convicted following a full evidentiary hearing of contact with a foreign agent and conspiracy to threaten, after the court rejected his claim that he lacked the required criminal intent.
While Stern admitted to the factual acts described in the indictment, he argued that he did not know for certain that the individual who operated under the alias “Anna Ellena” was acting on behalf of a hostile foreign state.
The court rejected that argument, ruling that Stern at the very least suspected that Anna was operating on behalf of a foreign state and its intelligence services, but chose to ignore those suspicions.
“He preferred to turn a blind eye,” Judge Chana Miriam Lomp wrote, “and refrained from severing the relationship or conducting the required inquiry that could have dispelled the suspicion.”
Stern activated two Israelis to act as proxies
According to the indictment, Stern was in continuous contact with Anna between June 2 and June 27, 2024, communicating via the Telegram app. During that period, he carried out a series of assignments at her direction in exchange for cryptocurrency payments.
To carry out the tasks, Stern activated two additional Israeli citizens, who performed assignments on his behalf, acting as his proxies.
The court found that all of the assignments Stern undertook were security-related in nature and carried a violent, nationalist political character.
While some of the more severe tasks were ultimately not carried out due to operational difficulties, the court ruled that Stern had been willing to perform them and abandoned them only because he was unable to execute them in practice.
Despite suspecting that Anna was acting on behalf of a foreign state and despite knowing that such contact could harm state security, Stern continued to maintain contact with her and agreed to serve as a conduit for various missions, the ruling states. The relationship, while lasting only about a month, was described by the court as daily, intensive, and involving a high volume of tasks relative to the time frame.
In assessing the harm caused, the court adopted a security assessment submitted by the prosecution, which warned of a sharp rise in Iranian intelligence efforts to recruit Israelis since the outbreak of the war.
The assessment described Iranian recruitment operations as crossing sectors of Israeli society and targeting citizens for intelligence collection, influence operations, and preparatory activities for future conflict.
The court accepted the assessment’s conclusion that Stern’s actions contributed to the establishment of an Iranian-operated network inside Israel and to the transmission of threatening messages to civilians .
Lomp emphasized the timing of the offenses, noting that Stern’s contact with the Iranian operative took place during wartime and after Iran’s April 2024 missile attack on Israel - an attack that, in the court’s words, “made Iran’s intentions toward Israel clear to any reasonable person.”
By assisting Iran during this period, the court held, Stern caused severe harm to protected state interests and effectively served as “Iran’s long arm” inside Israel.
At the time of the offenses, Stern was 22 years old, married, and the father of two young children, with no prior criminal record. He lived with his family in a rented apartment in Beit Shemesh, studied in a kollel, and worked as a ritual scribe. He was raised in an ultra-Orthodox Vizhnitz household.
The court noted that Stern acted out of financial motives rather than ideological identification with Iran, but accepted the prosecution’s position that there is no meaningful difference in the gravity of harm caused by economic versus ideological cooperation with a hostile state.
The court set a sentencing range of one to three years’ imprisonment and imposed the upper end of that range: three years in prison, along with a suspended sentence and a NIS 10,000 fine.
Prosecutors noted during sentencing that Stern was the first defendant to be convicted and sentenced in the current post-October 7 wave of cases involving contact with Iranian intelligence operatives, underscoring the court’s view that deterrence carries particular weight in the present security climate.
Police noted that since October 7, some 40 such indictments have been filed, pertaining to around 70 individuals.
Later on Thursday, police and the Shin Bet announced that two Jerusalem residents were arrested on suspicion of spying for Iran and receiving payment for sharing information.
The two were arrested back in January after an investigation conducted by the IDF and Shin Bet into suspicions that the two were “committing serious security offenses.” The investigation found that the suspects “had been in contact with Iranian intelligence elements and carried out various missions, while understanding that they were acting under Iranian direction.”
In exchange for the alleged espionage, the two were sent money to digital wallets.