An Israeli man was sentenced Wednesday to 13½ years in prison after admitting that he carried out a series of paid assignments for an entity acting on behalf of Iranian intelligence, including setting nine vehicles on fire, spraying politically divisive graffiti and photographing the neighborhood of former IDF chief Benny Gantz and energy infrastructure.
The Central District Court in Lod sentenced Alexander Granovsky under a plea agreement after he admitted to contact with a foreign agent, providing information to an enemy that could benefit it, nine counts of arson and multiple counts of defacing property. A separate case in which he admitted to threats and assault was also incorporated into the proceedings.
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According to the indictment, Granovsky’s contact with the Iran-linked operative began in late November 2024 and continued until his arrest on Dec. 15. The two communicated through the Telegram messaging app, and Granovsky received payments for some assignments through a digital wallet.
His initial tasks involved spraying graffiti in public places with slogans including “We are all against Bibi” — using Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nickname — and “We must put Netanyahu in prison,” as well as an internet address with an Iranian domain. He received payments worth hundreds of shekels for the graffiti.
The assignments then escalated. The operative offered to pay Granovsky to set fire to vehicles and police cars and obtain the addresses of senior military officers and government ministers.
Granovsky said he knew the neighborhood where Gantz, a former IDF chief of staff who later entered politics, lived but did not know his exact address.
Granovsky agreed to set vehicles on fire and received instructions on how to carry out and document the attacks. He ultimately torched nine vehicles, according to the indictment. On some, he spray-painted the words “Children of Ruhollah,” an apparent reference to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran. For some of the arson attacks, he received 900 euros in cryptocurrency.
The operative also instructed Granovsky to buy a handgun. Granovsky said he was unwilling to kill or wound people but indicated he would be prepared to fire at homes.
He later photographed Gantz’s neighborhood and sent the images to the operative. Granovsky also photographed from a distance the smokestacks of the Reading power station in Tel Aviv.
At the operative’s request, he traveled to the power station in Hadera, north of Tel Aviv, but said the heavy security made it difficult to complete the photography assignment and demanded additional payment. When the request was rejected, he left.
In another instance, Granovsky bought an IDF uniform at the operative’s direction but later reported that the clothing had been stolen.
He also agreed to make Molotov cocktails but said he could not carry out the assignment because an instructional video sent to him was in Ukrainian, a language he does not speak. Granovsky also provided the operative with information about two people with criminal records.
The Central District Attorney’s Office asked the court to approve the parties’ agreed sentence of 13½ years.
A prosecutor emphasized that the offenses were committed during wartime and as part of Granovsky’s relationship with an Iranian-linked operative, a connection she said Granovsky understood. She argued that deterrence should be given significant weight because of a growing phenomenon of Israeli citizens being recruited to carry out assignments for an enemy state.
Prosecutors also cited mitigating factors, including Granovsky’s full admission to the charges, his mental health and the relatively short period during which the offenses were committed. They pointed, however, to his criminal record and the seriousness of his crimes.
Granovsky’s public defenders, Anat Yaari and Frida Wall, argued that his case differed from other Iran-linked cases because his actions were not motivated by nationalism or ideology.
They described Granovsky as living on the margins of Israeli society, struggling with drug addiction and complex mental health issues. They said he acted for financial gain to fund his drug use.
The defense stressed that Granovsky was “not the classic spy” and had refused to harm innocent people. Granovsky expressed remorse and said he had not intended to harm Israel.
Judge Merav Greenberg approved the plea agreement, describing the agreed sentence as “heavy and severe, but appropriate to the seriousness of the acts and warranted under the circumstances.”
She described the case as “a serious series of offenses that severely harm the security of the state and its citizens,” committed for financial gain.
The court took into account Granovsky’s confession, acceptance of responsibility and expression of remorse. Greenberg said his admission reflected “genuine and meaningful acceptance of responsibility” and noted that without it, he would have faced an even longer prison sentence.
Although Granovsky refused some assignments and declined to harm innocent people, Greenberg said he nevertheless carried out numerous actions at the operative’s direction.
“Even if the defendant committed the acts for financial gain, with outrageous indifference to the consequences of his actions, that does not diminish their great severity,” she wrote.
The judge said some of the assignments were intended to damage Israel’s social fabric and create chaos and agitation. She said the timing made the offenses particularly serious because they were committed during Israel’s war following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack.
Greenberg also addressed the growing pattern of Iranian efforts to recruit Israelis in exchange for money.
“The phenomenon is gaining momentum, and the courts have a significant role in stopping it,” she wrote. “The need to deter others is the imperative of the hour.”
‘Threw a grenade — and sent the footage to the Iranian operative’
In a separate case Wednesday, the Jerusalem District Court convicted four residents of the Beit Safafa neighborhood of Jerusalem — Mamdouh Khader, Omri Abu Hamida, Mahmoud Khader and Mohammed Taha — of security offenses connected to assignments for an operative acting on Iran’s behalf.
The four pleaded guilty to charges stemming from activities for which they received payment from the operative.
According to the amended indictment, the operative contacted another defendant in the case and assigned him tasks intended to harm Israel's national security. Those assignments included forming a terrorist cell and working to assassinate a nuclear scientist and members of the scientist’s family, obtaining weapons and grenades and producing staged footage purporting to show attacks on a soldier’s home and a police vehicle.
Prosecutors said Mamdouh Khader and Abu Hamida were convicted of failing to prevent an act of terrorism after joining a trip to the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, one of Israel’s leading scientific research institutions.
During the trip, they were told that the visit was part of an assignment received from an Iranian operative, prosecutors said. After the group was prevented from entering the institute, they filmed its entrance and the videos were sent to the Iranian operative.
Abu Hamida later asked why they had filmed the site and was told that a person the Iranians wanted to assassinate lived there, according to prosecutors. Neither man acted to prevent the alleged plot.
Mahmoud Khader and Taha were convicted of assisting in contact with a foreign agent.
Khader helped spray and document graffiti in Jerusalem, drove another defendant to collect two grenades and helped obtain a fake police license plate intended for use in staged footage purporting to show an attack on a police vehicle.
Taha proposed throwing a stun grenade at an empty house in the village of Qatanna to create footage that would appear to show an attack on a Jewish person’s home.
He arrived at the location with the grenade, asked his friends to throw it, filmed the act and sent the video to the defendant who was in contact with the Iranian operative, according to prosecutors.
In another incident, Taha kept possession of the phone used to communicate with the operative in an effort to make it more difficult for authorities to locate it.