A 70-year-old Jewish New Yorker is reportedly among four US citizens who are being held in custody in Iran.
The four prisoners all traveled to Iran to visit family, The New York Times reported Saturday, citing rights groups. It added that families of three of the US citizens requested that their relatives remain anonymous over fears their prison conditions could be worsened.
The 70-year-old Jewish man and another American were arrested after Israel began its aerial campaign against Iran in June, the Human Rights Activists News Agency and Hengaw rights groups were quoted as saying.
The man, who owns a jewelry business, is being interrogated over a trip to Israel, the report said. It was unclear when the trip to Israel took place.
Earlier this week, the Kan public broadcaster reported that two American nationals were among at least 35 Jews who were detained in Iran following the war on suspicion of spying for Israel, five of whom were said to still be in prison.
The report said one of the American nationals, a Jew of Iranian ancestry from Los Angeles, was recently released on bail, while the other, an American who left Iran for New York 30 years ago, was still in prison. It could not immediately be confirmed if that was the same Jewish New Yorker that The Times reported on Saturday.
Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran’s nuclear program and missile production on June 13, saying the operation was necessary to prevent the Islamic Republic from realizing its avowed goal to destroy the Jewish state. The war ended 12 days later with a US-brokered ceasefire.
The second American reported by The Times to have been arrested right after the Israeli strikes started was a woman from California. Her whereabouts are now reportedly unknown after she was evacuated from Evin prison, which was struck by Israel during the war.
Two senior Iranian officials speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed to the US daily that the New York man and the Californian woman were detained as part of a crackdown on alleged operatives for Israel and the United States.
Iranian authorities were also said to have detained an Iranian-American woman who was first arrested in December 2024 and has since been released from prison, but had her Iranian and US passports confiscated, preventing her from leaving the country. The woman was charged with espionage following the war in June, the report said, citing her US-based lawyer.
Additionally, Iran in October 2024 detained Iranian-American journalist Reza Valizadeh, a former employee of the US-government-funded Persian-language Radio Farda, and reportedly sentenced him to 10 years in prison for “collaborating with a hostile government.”