Israeli citizen arrested over Netanyahu ‘assassination plot’

An Israeli citizen was arrested after allegedly accepting money from Iran to assassinate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it has been revealed. 

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar announced today that Tehran was behind a plot to kill senior officials in Israel following the assassination of Hamas‘ political chief Ismail Haniyeh in late July.

Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and other top Israeli officials were also named as Iranian targets claimed to have been uncovered by Israeli intelligence.

Iran had allegedly planned to employ an Israeli businessman with extensive time spent in Turkey to develop a plot on Netanyahu’s life within Israel.

Plans were said to have been underway as early as April this year, when Turkish citizens reached out to the Israeli businessman to talk through the plan.

Netanyahu allegedly faced assassination attempts after the death of Haniyeh in Tehran in July

Andrei Farouk Aslan and Guneid Aslan were named as the intermediaries serving to connect the alleged assassin with Iran via Turkey.

They were alleged to have met with the unidentified Israeli citizen in Samandag in May to meet and discuss the plot.

The Israeli businessman was alleged to have requested one million dollars before agreeing to anything.

Israeli intelligence understands he then received 5,000 euros as he underwent training in Iran.

As part of his work for Iran, he was allegedly requested to take videos of Israeli sites for surveillance and intelligence gathering purposes, and threaten other Israelis who Iran had already approached that were not complying with their own spy missions.

Iran is understood to have asked the businessman to try to recruit Russians and Americans capable of killing Iranian figures opposed to the regime.

Shin Bet, an Israeli intelligence agency, did not suggest how far the suspect had got with his missions.

They stressed that foiling one plot did not end the overarching threats facing Israel.

The businessman was indicted on Thursday.