Shin Bet: East Jerusalem Woman Recruited by Hezbollah, Iran

The Shin Bet revealed Thursday it had arrested an East Jerusalem woman on suspicion she was recruited by Hezbollah and Iranian army officials to spy against Israel.

Yasmin Jaber, an employee of the National Library at the Hebrew University of Yerushalayim, was arrested by the agency, along with several other acquaintances from East Jerusalem and Ramallah, who are suspected of having been involved in the secret cell.

Jaber is said to have been first noticed by Hezbollah during a conference in Lebanon in 2015, and in 2016 was recruited by Hezbollah and the Quds Force, a wing of the Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. After returning to Israel, Jaber was given instructions from her handlers in Hezbollah and the Quds Force. On several occasions, she met with Iranian and Hezbollah operatives during visits to Turkey.

During a visit to Lebanon in 2016, she was approached by members from Hezbollah and Iran’s Quds Force – one of Revolutionary Guard Corps’ units.

Once back in Israel, she remained in touch with her handlers through coded messages and also met with them several times in Turkey to receive orders and pass intelligence information.

According to the Shin Bet, her mission was to recruit more agents, specifically women, and form a clandestine cell in Israel to gather intelligence and information for possible future terrorist activities.

“This Shin Bet investigation is the product of a lengthy intelligence operation to locate those suspected of being recruited by Hezbollah. It is another step in the counterterrorism efforts carried out in the past year against Quds Force and Hezbollah’s attempts to recruit Israeli Arabs,” a senior Shin Bet official said in a statement.