SA claimed to be base for anti-Israel cell run by Iran
ISRAEL has cracked an alleged Palestinian militant cell suspected of having been recruited and handled by Iranian intelligence officers who worked out of South Africa.
Israel has long been locked in a shadow war with arch-foe Iran, which supports Islamist guerrillas in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon and whose nuclear programme is widely believed to have been targeted repeatedly by Israeli saboteurs.
Israel’s Shin Bet security agency said yesterday three Palestinians from the occupied West Bank had been indicted on espionage and terrorism charges after they confessed to accepting Iranian-assigned missions, including preparation of a suicide bombing and providing their handlers with Israeli cellphone SIM cards.
The Shin Bet said the suspects’ point of contact was a Palestinian who lived in South Africa and had been recruited by Iranian intelligence.
It gave no indication whether the South African government knew of the alleged Iranian activity, or of the Palestinian’s whereabouts.
South Africa, where pro-Palestinian sentiment is strong, has strained relations with Israel, but the Shin Bet statement also suggested the country effectively served as an Iranian spy hub.
“It became clear, during the Shin Bet investigation, that Iranian intelligence used South Africa as a significant arena for locating, recruiting and running anti-Israel agents in the West Bank,” the Shin Bet said, adding that several Iranian officers had travelled here from Tehran for the operation.
South Africa’s Foreign Ministry and Home Affairs Ministry and the Iranian embassy in Pretoria did not immediately respond to the Israeli allegations.
The Shin Bet did not say when it had cracked the Palestinian cell or when the trial of the suspects would begin.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday the case showed that “Iran operates in a subversive and terrorist manner – not just in aiding terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, but also in attempts to organise terror activities within the State of Israel against its civilians”.
The Shin Bet did not describe any of the attacks or espionage missions allegedly planned by the suspects as having been near to fruition.
A Shin Bet veteran interviewed by Israel Radio about the case suggested the purported South African link might be unprecedented.
“Apparently the Iranians found fertile ground in South Africa,” ex-officer Adi Carmi said.
“I do not recall South Africa ever having been used by the Iranians as a terrorist recruiting ground for the aim of carrying out attacks.” – Reuters, with additional reporting by Ed Stoddard and Mfuneko Toyana in Johannesburg
ISRAEL said yesterday it would pay thousands of African migrants living illegally in the country to leave, threatening them with jail if they are caught there after the end of March.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in public remarks at a cabinet meeting on the payment programme, said a barrier Israel completed in 2013 along its border with Egypt had effectively cut off a stream of illegal infiltrators from Africa after about 60 000 crossed the desert frontier.
The vast majority came from Eritrea and Sudan and many said they had fled war and persecution as well as economic hardship, but Israel treats them as economic migrants.
The plan launched this week offers African migrants a $3 500 (R43 108) payment from the Israeli government and a free air ticket to return home or go to third countries, which rights groups identified as Rwanda and Uganda.
“We have expelled about 20 000 and now the mission is to get the rest out,” Netanyahu said.
An immigration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were abut 38 000 migrants living illegally in Israel, and about 1 420 were being held in two detention centres.
“Beyond the end of March, those who leave voluntarily will receive a significantly smaller payment that will shrink even more with time, and enforcement measures will begin,” the official said, referring to incarceration.
Some have lived for years in Israel and work in low-paying jobs that many Israelis shun. Israel has granted asylum to fewer than 1% of those who have applied and has a years-long backlog of applicants.
Rights groups have accused Israel of being slow to process African migrants’ asylum requests as a matter of policy and denying legitimate claims to the status.
Netanyahu called the migrants’ presence a threat to Israel’s social fabric and Jewish character, and one government minister referred to them as a cancer.
Teklit Michael, an asylum seeker from Eritrea living in Tel Aviv, said paying money to other governments to take in Africans was akin to human trafficking.
“We don’t know what is waiting for us [in Rwanda and Uganda],” he said.
“They prefer now to stay in prison [in Israel] instead.”
Netanyahu said “veteran residents” in poorer areas no longer felt safe. –