Elimelech Stern was sentenced to three years in prison by the Jerusalem District Court on Thursday after it convicted 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, intensifying Iranian effort to recruit Israeli citizens during wartime, Stern was convicted following a full evidentiary hearing for having contact with a foreign agent and conspiracy to threaten.
This was after the court rejected Stern’s claim that he had no criminal intentions.
While Stern admitted to the factual acts depicted 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, at the very least, Stern suspected that Anna was acting 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. “He refrained from severing the relationship or conducting an 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 via Telegram from June 2, 2024, to June 27, 2024. During that period, he completed a series of assignments at her direction in exchange for cryptocurrency payments. To carry out the tasks, Stern engaged two additional Israeli citizens who performed assignments on his behalf and acted as his proxies.
The court found that all of the assignments Stern undertook were security-related and bore a violent, nationalist political character. While some of the more severe tasks were ultimately not committed due to operational difficulties, the court ruled that Stern was willing to perform them and abandoned them only because he was unable to execute them.
Despite suspecting that Anna was a foreign agent, moreover, and regardless of knowing that being in touch with this person could endanger state security, Stern continued to maintain contact with her and agreed to serve as a conduit for various missions, the ruling stated.
The relationship, although 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.
To determine the damage 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 war broke out in 2023.
The evaluation described Iranian recruitment activities as targeting all sectors of Israeli society for the purpose of intelligence collection, influence, and preparatory espionage 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 the Islamic Republic during this period, the court held, Stern caused severe harm to protected state interests and effectively served as “Iran’s long arm” within 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 resided with his family in a rented apartment in Beit Shemesh, studied at a yeshiva, and worked as a religious 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 vs ideological cooperation with a hostile state.
After setting a sentencing range of one to three years’ imprisonment, the court imposed the upper end of that range: three years’ imprisonment, 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 said that since October 7, approximately 40 such indictments, involving some 70 persons, have been filed.
Later on Thursday, the police and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) 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, funds were transferred to the two individuals' digital wallets.