Iran-linked social media accounts posing as Israelis to target election, investigation reveals

An OSINT investigation by Golden Owl found 1,516 anomalies among 21,533 posts analyzed, linking Iranian actors to social media accounts posing as Israeli citizens. The accounts spread election misinformation, including pre-emptive claims of a stolen vote and false postponement announcements. Researchers identified a layered infrastructure with coordinated personas using patriotic imagery and synthetic identities.

An open-source intelligence investigation by Golden Owl, published on Thursday, September 24, 2026, has linked Iranian actors to a network of social media accounts posing as Israeli citizens. The two-phase investigation, conducted between August 22 and September 22, analyzed 21,533 posts and flagged 1,516 for anomalies, including election misinformation, foreign framing, and anomalous account behavior. Despite voting not opening until October 27, multiple accounts published pre-emptive claims that the election result would be stolen, while others published false information about the vote itself. Accounts based outside Israel posted claims in Arabic, Russian, and English that the election would be postponed or suspended due to foreign interference. The research identified a layered infrastructure with coordinated personas embedded in conversations among real Israeli voters, using patriotic imagery and synthetic identities. Key personas included @YaaraShalev, which presented itself as a Jewish Israeli woman but used borrowed and synthetic images, and @miriamkozak, which had nearly 19,000 followers and was previously exposed as fictitious by the watchdog FakeReporter. The investigation also found that dark-web sellers were offering services and datasets targeting Israel, including Telegram accounts registered to Israeli phone numbers.