Shin Bet: Hezbollah Trying to Recruit Israeli Citizens

Hezbollah is busy trying to recruit Israeli civilians in order to carry out terror activities, an investigation by Israel’s security agency discovered following the June 6 arrest of two Israeli civilians from the northern Arab town of Majdal Krum and their subsequent interrogation.

The investigation found that a female Israeli citizen, Beirut Hamud, who lives in Lebanon with her husband, Bilal Bizari, had been operating on behalf of Hezbollah. Hamud is a journalist for the Hezbollah-affiliated newspaper Al-Ahkbar.

Hamud had been interrogated by security forces in 2013 on suspicion of contacting Hezbollah activists she had met with at a conference in Morocco in 2008, and at another conference held in Tunisia in 2012. In 2013, she moved to Lebanon, where she married Bizari, the Shin Bet reported.

In December 2019 Hamud met with two Arab-Israeli women in Turkey. These two were later interrogated by the Shin Bet on suspicion that Hamud and her husband tried to recruit them into Hezbollah. The two women’s meeting with Hamud was verified, and the interrogation revealed how Hezbollah was recruiting via Hamud and her husband.

The Shin Bet stated that it warned Bilal that Israel is aware of his and his wife’s recruiting for Hezbollah, and that this must stop.

“The Shin Bet will continue to work resolutely to monitor and thwart any espionage or terror activities by Hezbollah,” the Shin Bet said in a statement, stressing “the great severity attributed to the exploitation of Israeli citizenship in aid of terrorist and espionage activities.”