Iran International
Fars news website in Iran affiliated with the IRGC has published an article profiling several Israeli businesspeople, using thinly veiled threatening language.
The article published on Sunday and credited to the “International Desk” of the website claims it obtained “internal information” about these individuals who are “experts in military, security, cyber and technology fields of the Zionist regime.” The website also claims that the individuals were involved in “sabotage in Islamic countries and assassination of resistance activists.”
The artice is headlined, "Zionists who have to live in hiding".
It goes on to say that “The rest of the information includes very precise details about their family members, photos and videos, home and work addresses, and their commuting routes, as well as telephone numbers…”
However, the information published about each person is very brief and can be easily obtained from public sources.
The first person on the list is retired Major General of the Israeli Defense Forces, Amos Malka (1972-2002), who was director of IDF Intelligence and commander of ground forces during his military career.
Fars used a couple of publicly available photos of Malka, who for the past 20 years has been a successful businessman. He is currently involved with several companies as partner or chairman of the board, including Windare Ventures, Aitech, supplying rugged computer systems, and co-founder of Spire Security Solutions, a security and intelligence company.
Amir Levinthal is another individual named by Fars, who is the founder of Cylus, a rail cybersecurity company. He is also a former military officer and Fars says he served in IDF intelligence.
The article also profiles Gal Genut, CEO of cyber intelligence company Analiza, who served as director of Unit 8200 of the Israeli Intelligence Corps. Fars says that Genut is also involved in IntSights and says that both companies are contractors for the Israeli government and its intelligence service the Mossad.
Next, the Revolutionary Guard’s mouthpiece profiles Inbal Arieli, as one of 100 most influential persons “in new technologies of the temporary Zionist regime and one of the most well-known Zionist job creators.” It adds that Arieli was also a part of Unit 8200 and “believes that special unit operational tactics should be also used in the business world.”
Amit Meltzer is another Israeli cyber specialist Fars mentions and says he is an expert in cyber defense technologies.
The Fars article comes at a time when the Islamic Republic seems exposed and vulnerable to Israeli operations inside the country. Numerous acts of sabotage and assassination have occurred in Iran since July 2020. Sensitive nuclear, military and economic targets have been hit, although Israel has never confirmed or denied involvement.
The last incident occurred on May 22, when an operative of the Revolutionary Guard Qods (Quds) Force was gunned down outside his home in Tehran in broad daylight. A security source later told Iran International that the IRGC colonel Hssan Sayyad-Khodaei was responsible for recruiting operatives for terror attacks against Israelis.
Iranian officials, shaken by the incident, vowed revenge for the killing as reports said Israel had privately told the United States that it had eliminated the alleged terror organizer.
In a commentary entitled "Double Standards," the Iranian Diplomacy website, asked whether the new rhetoric by Amir-Abdollahian about obstacles to the revival of the Iran nuclear deal, was tailored solely for listeners in the annual meeting in Davos or it was the outcome of his experiences as foreign minister during the past 9 months.
Amir-Abdollahian, during a conversation with journalist Farid Zakaria in the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on May 26, said that hardliners in both Iran and the United States were working against the revival of the JCPOA. He particularly pointed out opposition by hardliners in the Iranian parliament (Majles).
According to Iran diplomacy, Amir-Abdollahian's statement about the Iranian parliament exerting pressure on the government to reject the JCPOA "could mean that the Iranian foreign Minister has two different views about the same issue." The website asked why he did not say the same thing to Iranian media.
However, neither Amir-Abdollahian nor Zakaria mentioned that hardliners are in control of Iran's negotiating team. Chief negotiator Ali Bagheri-Kani is known for his opposition to the JCPOA since the time he served in the team under ultraconservative negotiator Saeed Jalili in early 2010s. He continued to oppose an agreement with the United States until his appointment as chief negotiator by Iran's new government in 2021.
The Iranian foreign minister’s rhetoric about hardliners both in Iran and the United States was also not very different from his predecessor, Javad Zarif’s oft used line of argument, to show that his positions were moderate and those critical of Iran in the West were hardliners.
Meanwhile, the Iranian foreign minister for the first time "strongly condemned the war in Ukraine" without mentioning Russia's role. The Iran diplomacy wrote, "Undoubtedly, the foreign ministry is not courageous enough to make the same statement in Iran." The website also explained that the condemning the war in Ukraine could have been an indirect attack on Russia for its negative role in the talks and taking oil market share from Iran by selling its oil cheaper to China.
However, the website noted that although in many cases, Amir-Abdollahian's statements on Iran's foreign policy followed the party line, in some instances it appeared he got too close to Tehran's red lines.
Amir-Abdollahian, who spoke in Persian throughout the 35-minute conversation looked calmer and on top of the subject matter in most parts of the conversation, unlike his previous international appearances. He sounded like a very good speaker, at least in Persian. His points of weakness were revealed only when he answered questions on relations with Saudi Arabia, which later met with an indirect denial by his Saudi counterpart.
His accusation that the United States did not fight terrorism in Afghanistan and Syria were also not the highlight of this conversation as they were similar to Iranian officials' run-off-the-mill answers to such questions and were devoid of any insight.
Similarly, his statement that "We have intelligence the Zionists have taken US foreign policy hostage," was a repetition of Tehran's ragged argument about the issue throughout the past four decades.
A new video posted on social mediaon Friday shows that tall concrete walls and poles for surveillance cameras are being erected around Khavaran cemetery, southeast of Tehran.
In a statement Friday, Justice-Seekers of Khavaran, a group of families of the victims and survivors of the prison purges, called on authorities to immediately stop more barriers to the resting place of their loved ones, and said they will launch an international campaign to make their voices heard by the international community.
In 1988, an unknown number of executed prisoners were buried in mass and individual graves at Khavaran which had previously been used to bury non-Muslims including Armenian Christians, Hindus and members of the persecuted Baha’i faith.
Authorities have never disclosed the number of those executed in prisons across the country from August 1988 until February 1989. Between 4,500 and 10,000 prisoners are believed to have been killed. Almost all victims were serving prison terms when clerical rulers decided to eliminate them.
Most victims were members or supporters of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) as well as Marxists and other members of other leftists groups.
Justice for Iran, a London-based rights organization, in a tweet on Saturday said restricting access to the site of mass graves allows the Islamic Republic to further destroy evidence of the crimes it has committed. Mass graves are crime scenes and must remain intact until they can be independently investigated to identify the remains of the victims and the sequence of events when the crimes happened, the rights organization said.
In 2018 Justice for Iran published a report on mass graves of political prisoners in various Iranian cities including Khavaran. According to the report, authorities have on numerous occasions tried to destroy evidence of the burials at Khavaran and other places, including by bulldozing the sites.
The unmarked graves in Khavaran were discovered soon after the executions by victims’ relatives who were never told where their loved ones had been buried. At Khavaran they found limbs and partially buried bodies of victims in shallow unmarked mass graves.
The news about the graves soon spread among those in search of the graves of their loved ones and the cemetery itself took the place of graves never found as many who regularly go there have no evidence of their loved one is buried there. Victims’ families call the cemetery “The Flower Garden of Khavaran”.
Despite constant harassment and persecution, Mothers of Khavaran, a group of mothers and families of victims, have fought for over three decades to bring the authorities to reveal the burial places of their loved ones.
In April 2021, members of the prosecuted Baha’i religious community in Tehran were ordered to bury their dead on the site of a mass grave at Khavaran although they said their own allocated site still had plenty of burial space. They were also told that the remains of the executed prisoners had been exhumed.
"This is the latest in a series of criminal attempts over the years by Iran's authorities to destroy mass grave sites of the 1988 prison massacres in a bid to eliminate crucial evidence of crimes against humanity," said Amnesty International's deputy Middle East director, Diana Eltahawy following the Baha’i community’s revelation.