Iranian operatives infiltrated the Telegram account of former Israeli minister Ayelet Shaked during June’s 12-day war with Iran — Operation Rising Lion — according to Israeli security sources.

The breach took place between June 13 and June 24, in the midst of one of Israel’s most tense military confrontations in decades. Shaked, who served as justice and interior minister in previous governments but has not held public office for over two and a half years, had long been on Tehran’s cyber radar.

Sources said the hack was confined to her Telegram account and did not expose sensitive information. Still, the intrusion underscores Iran’s persistent targeting of senior Israeli political figures — even those no longer in government.

Shaked had first been warned as early as 2016, and again in 2017, by then–Shin Bet chief Nadav Argaman that Iranian intelligence was actively monitoring her phone and attempting to intercept her conversations. She was advised to assume her communications were compromised and to treat her device as “potentially tapped.”

A prominent figure on Israel’s right, Shaked lost her Knesset seat in the 2022 elections after her joint list with the Habayit Hayehudi party failed to cross the electoral threshold.

The revelation comes just weeks after Shaked publicly criticized Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu over what she called catastrophic failures on October 7. In a May interview with Ynetnews, she said: “On October 7, Israel’s deterrence completely collapsed. The responsibility for Israel’s deterrence over the years rests with the prime minister and his government. In this term, deterrence simply failed, both against Hamas and Iran. I believe the right course of action now is to agree on an election date — the current government cannot continue for long.”

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