Security experts believe Israeli intelligence services are increasingly turning to social media to gather information and find potential informants in Lebanon and Iran. The approaches use online advertisements and appeals written to appeal to local audiences.
One verified Instagram account claims to belong to Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency. It has published messages in Arabic urging people to get in touch through confidential channels.
Lebanese warnings over Mossad-linked social media accounts
The account, which operates under the handle @themossad_official, has posted recruitment appeals in colloquial Lebanese Arabic. Some posts invite users to explore new opportunities by starting a private conversation.
The profile’s pinned highlight reels carry Arabic titles, including “Lebanon”, which shows a photo of fighters, as well as “Israel”, “Mossad wants you!”, “Protection” and “Think about your future”. In August 2025, Lebanon’s General Security Directorate warned residents not to interact with the account.
Lebanon has faced years of economic turmoil that has left many residents struggling financially. Security officials there have warned that Israeli intelligence may be trying to recruit people through social media, taking advantage of that hardship.
In January 2025, a Lebanese newspaper reported that Israeli intelligence operatives had tried to recruit Lebanese citizens using fake job advertisements that promised high salaries. They also reached out directly through WhatsApp. Retired Brigadier General Mounir Chehade told the paper that these efforts focused on areas with strong support for Hezbollah, including Beirut’s southern suburbs, southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.
The same month, the General Security Directorate cautioned people against a Facebook page called SAWA, which it suspected was a front for Mossad aimed at recruiting Lebanese citizens. In December 2025, another Lebanese newspaper reported that the agency had issued a similar warning about a social media page calling itself “Unit 504”.
Arrests and the role of counterintelligence in Lebanon
The warnings have come alongside arrests of people accused of passing sensitive information to Israel. Lebanese authorities were reported in October 2025 to have arrested 32 people previously suspected of providing information that was used to target Hezbollah leaders.
Academic and political researcher Wissam Nassif Yassin said Israeli intelligence uses colloquial Lebanese Arabic on these platforms to avoid arousing suspicion and to make contact easier. He said Israel targets all segments of society, because “every person can be penetrated from their own angle”, given how deeply Hezbollah is integrated into Lebanese society.
Yassin said the effort focuses first on party members, then on the wider resistance environment and then on those around it. He acknowledged that Israel has had notable successes in Lebanon, including gathering information that led to attacks on Hezbollah leaders and members. Even so, he argued that collaboration with Israel remains widely rejected in Lebanon.
He also pointed to Hezbollah’s counterintelligence capabilities, saying the group has a long record of identifying and disrupting Israeli intelligence activity. As an example, he cited Elhanan Tannenbaum, an alleged Israeli spy who was captured in 2000 after being lured abroad and was released in 2004 in a prisoner exchange deal.
Iran’s intelligence war with Israel and threatened penalties
The use of digital platforms to recruit informants is part of a long-running intelligence struggle between Israel and Iran, which has grown more intense alongside the military conflict between the two countries. Hassan Ahmadian, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Tehran, described the current period as one of the most intense in decades of espionage between the two countries.
“This is an intelligence war. The confrontation between Iran and Israel has continued for decades, but in recent years it has reached its peak,” Ahmadian said. He added that both sides are carrying out intelligence operations in what he called an intense conflict that has never stopped.
Ahmadian said Israeli recruitment in Iran sometimes takes the form of openly advertised opportunities on social media. He recalled seeing advertisements seeking analysts or security workers, sometimes with high salaries, that invited applicants to visit a particular page. He suggested that such open advertising might also aim to create a perception of Israel’s intelligence reach inside Iran.
“Israel uses propaganda, but this blatant method is perhaps partly to amplify the Israeli presence,” Ahmadian said. He also pointed to cases in which Iran had carried out its own counter-operations. In October 2024, Israeli authorities announced the arrest of seven Israeli nationals accused of spying for Iran by collecting intelligence on military facilities and other sensitive sites.
Separately, former Israeli Energy Minister Gonen Segev was arrested in 2018 on accusations of spying for Iran. He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2019.
Authorities in both Lebanon and Iran have threatened severe penalties for anyone who interacts with Israeli accounts. In July, an Iranian newspaper reported that the Ministry of Intelligence had warned about social media accounts allegedly set up by Mossad to extract information and spread false news after recent security operations. The ministry claimed Mossad had even offered medical advice to people injured during the United States-Israeli war on Iran, in an effort to gather sensitive intelligence.
In the same month, Iran’s judiciary warned that sending images or information to networks deemed hostile could bring sentences of 10 to 15 years in prison and heavy fines. It also said such conduct could lead to charges of “corruption on Earth”, an offence that carries the death penalty. In Lebanon, collaboration with Israel is punishable by imprisonment.
As the covert contest moves further online, Ahmadian said there was little sign that the confrontation would ease. “I do not expect this intelligence war to stop at any moment between the two parties,” he said, adding that it “will remain ongoing and will continue to affect the entire conflict.”
