Hundreds of members of an extremist Jewish group, Lev Tahor, are attempting to travel to Iran for asylum.
Lev Tahor, an anti-Zionist sect currently based in Guatemala, is composed of around 280 members.
Many in the group hold Israeli citizenship, sparking fears among relatives that the group’s arrival will cause a severe diplomatic crisis, according to The Times of Israel.
Israeli authorities have stopped dozens of Jewish families of the Lev Tahor ultra-Orthodox sect from fleeing to Iran where they had applied for asylum.
"Israel and the US are working to prevent members of an extremist ultra-Orthodox sect from moving to Iran, amid fears they could be used as a bargaining chip by Tehran," the Times of Israel newspaper reported, noting that the group; which is anti-Zionist, applied for political asylum in 2018.
The paper said documents presented at a US federal court in 2019 showed that leaders of the Hasidic community requested asylum in Iran and swore allegiance to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The spokesman for an anti-Zionist Haredi cult was recorded praising the IDF in a clip retrieved by The Times of Israel Wednesday, in what could threaten the extremist group’s ongoing efforts to seek asylum in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The clip — a Zoom conversation recorded shortly after the war Israel fought with Hamas in Gaza in May — features Lev Tahor spokesman Uriel Goldman rejecting as a “joke” accusations that the IDF used excessive force during the 11 days of fighting.
“There [are] people who are always saying ‘how come you’re attacking children?’ There [are] casualt[ies] with children!’… It’s nonsense because you know how [Israel] care[s] about [these] things much more than Americans,” Goldman can be heard saying.