Some eight indictments were issued against men aged 34 to 81 for attempting to sexually harass a minor under the age of 15, the Tel Aviv prosecutor announced Wednesday. The men were caught because the minor they are suspected of attempting to harass was in fact an undercover Israel Police officer posing as a 13-year-old girl.
Each of those indicted held online explicit, sexual conversations with the officer, believing him to be a 13-year-old girl. The conversations included descriptions of sexual acts, acts that the suspects wanted to perform on "the child" and requests for the girl to perform acts on herself.
The officer posed as a child as part of an operation to combat pedophilia online led by Israel police between 2018 and 2019 in which the officer made himself available to chat with on an online forum. The officer did not initiate any contact with people on the platform, and only responded to messages received.
Over half (62%) of complaints filed to the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel in 2019 were about sex offenses against minors, with close to a third of complaints (28.7%) about offenses against victims from age 0 to 12. Some 3.7% of sex offenses in 2019 took place online or over the phone.