Israeli Soldier Held over Alleged Extortion of Underage Girls Online with Threats to Grenade Home

An Israeli soldier is being held in custody on suspicion of posing as a teenage boy to obtain intimate photographs from girls of 14 and 15, then threatening to throw a grenade into one girl's home when she resisted his demands.

A court extended the detention of the 20-year-old active-duty soldier from Bat Yam on Monday 7 September 2026, holding him until Thursday 10 September while Israel Police continue to investigate.

Officers suspect him of sexual offences against minors, sexual extortion, sexual harassment and making threats, and investigators say he admitted during questioning that he had hidden his real age because the girls would not otherwise have spoken to him.

He has not been charged, no conviction has been recorded against him, and he has yet to stand trial.

What Police Say the Soldier Did Online

The alleged approach relied on a false identity. According to the Jerusalem Post, which reported the detention hearing, the soldier allegedly presented himself online as a 16-year-old boy in order to strike up conversations with girls aged 14 and 15.

Investigators traced the contact across two platforms. Israel Police suspect he first reached the girls on TikTok before steering the conversations onto WhatsApp, where he is alleged to have persuaded them to send him revealing photographs of themselves.

The suspect's own account to detectives appears to undercut any suggestion that he was unaware of their ages. Investigators found that he knew the girls were minors, and he acknowledged concealing how old he was.

'If I had told them I was 20, they would not have spoken to me. I saw that they were minors,' he said during questioning.

The Threats That Followed the Photographs

Police say the tone of the exchanges shifted once he had the images. The conversations allegedly changed character after the girls sent the photographs, at which point officers suspect he began extorting them and issuing serious threats.

One alleged message stands out for its violence. In an exchange attributed to him, he is said to have told one of the girls that he would throw a grenade at her in her home and murder her and her family. The threat sits at the centre of the offences he is suspected of, alongside the sexual counts.

The formal suspicions cover four areas. He is suspected of sexual offences against minors, sexual extortion, sexual harassment and making threats, a combination that reflects both the images allegedly obtained and the pressure allegedly applied afterwards. None of those suspicions has been tested in court.

A Psychiatric Evaluation and an Unfinished Investigation

The case reached this point through an arrest warrant rather than an immediate detention. A court issued the warrant on 25 August 2026, and Bat Yam police arrested the soldier subsequently, with Monday's hearing extending his custody rather than beginning it.

His family has raised his health during the investigation. The suspect's mother told police that her son has special needs along with attention and concentration difficulties, and at his attorney's request he is expected to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. What bearing that assessment may have on the proceedings has not been established.

Detectives are still working through the material. Bat Yam police investigators continue to examine the suspect's communications with the girls and to establish the full scope of the alleged offences, and the investigation remains open. The soldier has not been publicly named.

The alleged method is one Israeli investigators have encountered repeatedly. In a separate case last month, police said they had identified more than 20 victims after arresting a 40-year-old man from central Israel who had allegedly presented himself as a 16-year-old on TikTok and Instagram, using another child's photograph, and contacted children aged between 11 and 15. That investigation began with a call to the 105 hotline from a 12-year-old girl.

The volume of such complaints is climbing. Reports of online abuse in Israel rose by 71 per cent during 2025, and children now file the majority of those complaints themselves rather than through a parent or a school.

Officers at the 105 centre, which sits within the national police force's Lahav 433 unit and combines investigators with staff from the education and welfare ministries, have warned that a single embarrassing photograph can turn into sexual extortion very quickly, and urge young people to call rather than give in to a blackmailer's demands.

Whether the file becomes an indictment now depends on what Bat Yam detectives find in the messages still under review.

If you are a young person being pressured or blackmailed over intimate images, help is available. In Israel, the police 105 hotline handles online offences against minors. In the UK, the NSPCC can be reached on 0808 800 5000 and Childline on 0800 1111. In the US, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children operates a CyberTipline on 1-800-843-5678 and runs the Take It Down service for removing images shared without consent.