Israel Arrests Hezbollah Cell Plotting to Kidnap Israelis

A Hezbollah flag and a poster depicting Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah are pictured along a street, near Sidon, Lebanon July 7, 2020. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho/File Photo
A Hezbollah flag and a poster depicting Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah are pictured along a street, near Sidon, Lebanon July 7, 2020. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho/File Photo
TT
20

Israel Arrests Hezbollah Cell Plotting to Kidnap Israelis

A Hezbollah flag and a poster depicting Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah are pictured along a street, near Sidon, Lebanon July 7, 2020. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho/File Photo
A Hezbollah flag and a poster depicting Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah are pictured along a street, near Sidon, Lebanon July 7, 2020. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho/File Photo

Four Arab Israelis arrested last month were indicted on Sunday over their ties to Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Four of them are residents of northern Israel's Galilee, the Shin Bet security service and the police disclosed.

According to the Shin Bet, they were asked to smuggle weapons into Israel and to establish a terror cell to kidnap Israelis, provide information on targets for missile attacks, and locate possible locations for crossing the border from Lebanon into Israeli territory.

Israeli officials have pointed toward a senior Hezbollah official by the name of Hajj Khalil Harb as the one responsible for coordinating weapons smuggling attempts into northern Israel.

Harb is accused of personally directing a Hezbollah operative who met with two of the suspects in Turkey in November.

“This affair illustrates the efforts of Iranian and other terror elements to exploit the Arab and Druze citizens of Israel,” a senior Shin Bet official said. “Citizens who receive inquiries from terror elements are called upon to report this to authorities and to avoid a situation in which they find themselves involved in serious security activities.”

The military said in a separate statement that “Israel’s security forces will continue to operate to maintain security in the region and act against any attempt to violate the sovereignty of the state of Israel."

“During the past year, the Shiite axis led by the Iranian regime and its terrorist proxies across the Middle East has been actively promoting attacks and weapons smuggling into Israel,” it added.



UN Says 875 Palestinians Have Been Killed Near Gaza Aid Sites

Destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip are pictured at sunset from a position across the border in southern Israel on July 15, 2025. (AFP)
Destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip are pictured at sunset from a position across the border in southern Israel on July 15, 2025. (AFP)
TT
20

UN Says 875 Palestinians Have Been Killed Near Gaza Aid Sites

Destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip are pictured at sunset from a position across the border in southern Israel on July 15, 2025. (AFP)
Destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip are pictured at sunset from a position across the border in southern Israel on July 15, 2025. (AFP)

The UN rights office said on Tuesday it had recorded at least 875 killings within the past six weeks at aid points in Gaza run by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and convoys run by other relief groups, including the United Nations.

The majority of those killed were in the vicinity of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, while the remaining 201 were killed on the routes of other aid convoys.

The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a UN-led system that Israel alleges has let Hamas-led fighters loot aid shipments intended for civilians. Hamas denies the allegation.

The GHF, which began distributing food packages in Gaza in late May after Israel lifted an 11-week aid blockade, previously told Reuters that such incidents have not occurred on its sites and accused the UN of misinformation, which it denies.

The GHF did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the latest UN figures.

"The data we have is based on our own information gathering through various reliable sources, including medical human rights and humanitarian organizations," Thameen Al-Kheetan, a spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, told reporters in Geneva.

The United Nations has called the GHF aid model "inherently unsafe" and a violation of humanitarian impartiality standards.

The GHF said on Tuesday it had delivered more than 75 million meals to Gaza Palestinians since the end of May, and that other humanitarian groups had "nearly all of their aid looted" by Hamas or criminal gangs.

The Israeli army previously told Reuters in a statement that it was reviewing recent mass casualties and that it had sought to minimize friction between Palestinians and the Israeli army by installing fences and signs and opening additional routes.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has previously cited instances of violent pillaging of aid, and the UN World Food Program said last week that most trucks carrying food assistance into Gaza had been intercepted by "hungry civilian communities".