The Supreme Court on Sunday added a year to the prison sentence of Nazareth resident Hamad Hammadi, who in 2024 was found guilty of joining an Iranian-operated terrorist cell.

Hammadi, who was convicted of arson and contact with a foreign agent, will now spend seven years in jail instead of six.

He set fire to four cars in Haifa on June 21, 2023, and carried out other activities on the orders of individuals from Jenin, in the West Bank, who were themselves acting on orders of an Iranian intelligence operative in Jordan.

In its ruling Sunday, the court said contact with a foreign agent is one of the most severe crimes in the Israeli penal code because of the potential for danger to national security.

The court also accepted the prosecution’s argument that there was a special need to deter other people from carrying out similar crimes, amid dozens of recent cases of Israeli citizens allegedly........

© The Times of Israel