Amid ongoing legal proceedings, reports in the Turkish media revealed how recruits of Israel's Mossad worked before Turkish authorities dismantled the espionage network.
A court in Istanbul has ordered 15 of the 34 people detained on suspicion of spying for Israel to be held in prison awaiting trial, Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç announced on Friday.
The suspects were arrested last Tuesday for allegedly planning to carry out activities that included “reconnaissance” and “pursuing, assaulting and kidnapping” foreign nationals living in Türkiye. Justice Minister Tunç said in a social media post that 26 suspects were referred to court on the charge of committing “political or military espionage” on behalf of Israeli intelligence.
Eleven were released under judicial control conditions and eight were awaiting deportation. Twelve others are still wanted by authorities.
Israel’s foreign intelligence agency Mossad is said to have recruited Palestinians and Syrian nationals inside Türkiye as part of the operation against foreigners living in Türkiye. Anadolu Agency (AA) cited a prosecution document as saying the operation targeted “Palestinian nationals and their families ... within the scope of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
One suspect allegedly collected information about Palestinian patients recently transferred to Türkiye for health care. Türkiye has accepted dozens of Palestinian patients from Gaza since the start of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The suspects were detained in raids on 57 addresses in Istanbul and seven other provinces. Weeks earlier, the head of Israel’s domestic Shin Bet security agency said his organization was prepared to target Hamas anywhere, including in Lebanon, Türkiye and Qatar. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has earlier warned Israel of “serious consequences” if it pressed ahead with its threat to attack Hamas officials on Turkish soil.
Turkish media outlets reported that Palestinian and Syrian suspects linked to Israeli intelligence collected and sold information about fellow Palestinians to Mossad operatives in exchange for payments. Recruits were mostly lured through online job postings.
The investigation found in the phones of a suspect, a Syrian national identified with his initials as H.H., photos of doors of several houses where Palestinian nationals living in Türkiye resided. Photos were linked to a map application for exact coordinates and delivered to the Mossad operatives. H.H. was allegedly paid through a wire transfer via Syria in December 2023.
Another suspect a Lebanese Turkish citizen, was working at a Türkiye-based nonprofit which provided a platform for the Palestinian campaign to make Israeli aggression on Gaza known in the world. The suspect, identified as M.B., conveyed information about participants of meetings of the nonprofit to Mossad operatives. A Turkish suspect among those detained was working in a foundation granting scholarships to Palestinian students in Türkiye. He is accused of sending information about students to the Israeli intelligence.
Mossad asked another suspect to obtain ID information regarding some targets. The suspect, identified as M.I., supplied this information, along with photos of a store in Istanbul's popular Istiklal Street, to the Mossad agents. In return, he received payments amounting to TL 1,200 (about $40).
A Turkish real estate agent identified as A.F.A. was paid in dollars and euros. A.F.A. told investigators that someone contacted him through an online real estate marketplace and asked for photos of two real estate projects and inquired about the percentage of foreign residents in certain apartment complexes.
Investigators also uncovered WhatsApp correspondence between a suspect and Mossad operatives, including videos of places she was asked to shoot. The suspect told investigators she was contacted to shoot videos of Istanbul's Süleymaniye, one of the big mosques in famed Sultanahmet Square, near Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque, and was paid $150 in exchange for videos.
The same person who paid her also instructed her to take photos of an apartment complex in Istanbul's Başakşehir district, a place popular among Palestinian and Arab residents of Istanbul.
An encrypted messaging program usually employed by terrorist groups, was found in the cellphone of one of the suspects. The same suspect, who worked as a "support personnel" at the local branch of the Health Directorate in Istanbul's Fatih district, and his wife, received regular payments. The suspect told investigators he was paid money for people he helped to acquire Turkish citizenship.
However, the investigation showed he shared information about injured people and patients brought to Türkiye from Palestine with the Israeli intelligence.
Some suspects accused of working for Mossad have stayed in Hatay, one of the provinces devastated by the Feb. 6 earthquakes last year. They delivered money to foreigners in Hatay and organized meetings for religious chats, media outlets reported.
