Lebanon arrests 32 people suspected of spying for Israel
Lebanon has arrested 32 people in recent months on suspicion of providing Israel with information on Hezbollah that facilitated strikes on the group, a judicial official told AFP on Thursday.
More than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah including two months of open war saw Israel pummel the group's arsenal and kill a slew of senior commanders, and it has kept up strikes even after a November truce.
Requesting anonymity, the official said that "at least 32 people have been arrested on suspicion of collaborating with Israel, six of them before the ceasefire."
So far, "nine people have been tried by the military court," while 23 are still under investigation, the official added.
Lebanon has no formal ties with Israel, and any contact is punishable with imprisonment.
In September last year, hundreds of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies exploded in an Israeli operation that paralyzed the group's communication systems and that Lebanon said killed 39 people and wounded thousands.
The following week, Israel killed longtime Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in a massive airstrike on Beirut's southern suburbs.
A second judicial official with knowledge of the investigations said two of those convicted were sentenced to eight and seven years of hard labor respectively.
They were found guilty of "providing the enemy with coordinates, addresses and names of Hezbollah officials, knowing that the enemy would use this information to bomb locations where the group's officials and leaders were located," that official said.
Some of the suspects admitted to "providing Israel with information during the war in south Lebanon and Beirut's southern suburbs," where Hezbollah holds sway, they added.
- Vehicle types, buildings -
Among those in custody is a religious singer close to Hezbollah whose brother was killed in an Israeli strike.
The suspect is accused of collaborating with Israel's Mossad spy agency in exchange for money, the second official said, and of providing Israel with coordinates that led to the death of a Hezbollah official and his son in an Israeli strike in south Beirut in April.
He allegedly supplied Israel with "the names of new leaders appointed by the party to succeed those killed during the war, facilitating their assassination by Israel," the second official added.
A Lebanese security source, also requesting anonymity, told AFP that initial questioning of some detainees showed Israel had sought information on the types of cars and motorcycles Hezbollah members used.
Since the ceasefire, Israel has usually said its strikes have targeted Hezbollah sites or operatives, and it repeatedly struck cars and motorbikes both before and after the truce.
"Some agents from outside the group's ranks were tasked with monitoring certain Hezbollah military and security figures," or with "photographing buildings and facilities that Israel suspected were weapons depots and command and control centers," the security source added.
Lebanon has arrested dozens of people on suspicion of collaborating with Israel over the years, many recruited online in the wake of the country's economic collapse in 2019.
Those convicted face prison sentences of up to 25 years.
Source: Agence France Presse
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