Shin Bet security agency head Nadav Argaman met with former Prime Minister Ehud Barak last week to discuss what were described as "urgent" concerns among Israeli security officials that the Iranians may be planning to attack Barak on one of his visits abroad.
According to a report by Hadashot evening news, Argaman and Barak reportedly met at the high-rise Tel Aviv apartment complex where Barak lives. In recent months, Barak has dispensed with his security detail both in Israel and while traveling abroad. Sometimes, his only protection is his personal handgun. As well as being a former prime minister, Barak is a former defense minister and former IDF chief of staff.
Iran has threatened Israeli officials and their families in the past. In 2015, the Iranian news website Mashregh reported that the sons of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Yair and Avner, could be the targets of an Iranian attack in retaliation for a strike in January that year in Syria attributed to Israel that killed a number of Hezbollah operatives and members of the Iranian military.
Mashregh ran an image of Yair and Avner Netanyahu in a sniper's crosshairs.
The news report said other possible targets for the Iranians include Gilad and Omri Sharon, sons of the late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and Shaul Olmert, son of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The report said that the sons of present and former leaders meet the Iranian criteria for assassination because they had all served in the IDF.
In 2012, counterterrorism officials reported to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that Iran and its proxies – particularly the Quds Force and Hezbollah – were behind attacks on Israeli diplomatic officials in India and the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Neither attack resulted in casualties.
