Israeli court indicts 10 Arabs for smuggling explosives

Mohamed Mar’i
Saudi Gazette

RAMALLAH — An Israeli court on Wednesday indicted 10 Arabs for crimes against the state.  

The charges made against the terror cell in the Nazareth District Court included "assisting the enemy at a time of war", "contact with a foreign agent", "possession and transportation of weapons", "establishing contacts in order to commit a crime", and "attempting to smuggle and sell drugs".

The Northern District Police chief Ronny Atiya said that an investigation was launched in early July after Israeli intelligence officers received a tip-off regarding the smuggling of explosives into Israel from Lebanon.

Atiya told the Israeli Army Radio that the internal Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet and the Israeli police arrested 13 Arab Ghajar residents who helped smuggle 20 kilograms of high-grade explosives into Israel. He added that the C-4 was “ready for use”.

The radio cited a senior Shin Bet official as saying that suspects were on orders from Hezbollah and were meant to target Israelis. The official strongly believed that the smuggling of explosives into Israel from Lebanon “would need approval from the top of Hezbollah.”

Israeli security sources said that Hezbollah plans to kidnap or attack Israelis to avenge the assassination of the group’s second in command, Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed in a car bombing in Damascus in February 2008.

Hezbollah has accused Israel of masterminding the assassination, but Israel has denied the allegations.

Official Israeli sources claim several Hezbollah attempts have been successfully foiled. Among them was an attempted attack against an Israeli embassy in a central Asian country and kidnap attempts against Israeli businessmen in western Africa and the Arabian Gulf.