Israeli authorities have reportedly foiled a Hezbollah plot to carry out a terrorist attack in the Haifa region, through an Israeli Arab cell.
Seven Israeli Arab residents of the village of Ghajar, located on the Israel-Lebanon border, were indicted on charges of espionage, contact with a foreign agent, and other offences.
The main defendant and the head of the cell, Diab Kahamuz, “was in touch with his father, a drug dealer from Ghajar who fled to Lebanon in October 2006, and is known as someone who assists Hezbollah’s activities,” Israel’s security agency Shin Bet stated in its report.
A farmer found a bag with two explosives near the town of Metula on July 30th. Kahamuz and the other defendants brought the explosives over the Israeli border from Lebanon using drug-smuggling routes. They were instructed to detonate the explosives in a crowded place in Haifa. The defendants scouted locations and ultimately decided to target a bus stop near Tu’ran, in Israel’s north, which is frequently used by Israeli soldiers.
When the indicted men were arrested on September 4, Israeli authorities seized their computers and cell phones, on which they discovered photos of possible bombing targets that had been sent to Hezbollah.
Hezbollah has increasingly been making attempts to carry out terrorist attacks on Israelis through using cells made up of Israeli and Palestinians. The Shin Bet announced in August that it had broken up two separate Hezbollah recruiting rings in the West Bank over the previous several months.
One of the cells was planning to attack an IDF patrol near Qalqilya, a city in the northern West Bank, and was given instructions via Facebook by Unit 133, Hezbollah’s foreign operations division, to carry out terrorist attacks and recruit other individuals to Hezbollah.
One of the men the Shin Bet arrested was paid $900 for organising attacks against Israeli targets, including a suicide bombing on a bus, and recruiting more people to Hezbollah. An additional recruit was instructed to carry out a shooting attack against Israeli forces stationed in Jenin, in the northern West Bank.
