There's significant chip development and manufacturing talent there, so it's not really all that surprising if Apple has a team there for those purposes.

Also Apple bought out Intel's modem division in 2019 [2], so chances are that group was already Israel based under Intel.

1. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/corporate-responsibi... 2. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/07/apple-to-acquire-the-...

Looks like Apple's design center is in Jerusalem.