Earlier this month, the IDF and Israel Police announced that they had thwarted a significant weapons-smuggling attempt from Lebanon into Israel. A total of 43 firearms worth millions of shekels were confiscated near the area of the Ghajar village on July 9, the security forces said, after IDF observation troops spotted suspects smuggling bags.
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In its statement, the IDF said it was "examining the possibility that the smuggling attempt was carried out with the help of the Hezbollah terror organization, and investigating, together with the Israel Police, the perpetrators of the weapon-smuggling attempt."
The IDF is investigating the involvement of a senior Hezbollah operative, Haj Khalil Harb, notorious for trafficking narcotics and weapons along the Blue Line separating Israel and Lebanon.
Harb has served as a security advisor to the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, and as a commander for the terrorist organiztion's top units. He was also linked to another trafficking run in June, in which 15 guns and dozens of kilograms of drugs were confiscated.
These developments point to a more significant event – the expanded activities of Hezbollah's dangerous Unit 133, which orchestrates terror attacks in Israel and Judea and Samaria, according to Maj. (res.) Tal Beeri, director at the Alma reserach center's department that sheds light on security threats to Israel from Syria and Lebanon.
According to Beeri, a former IDF intelligence officer, Harb may have been appointed in recent months to assist Unit 133 and possibly lead it. The development comes as no coincidence since he is the former commander of the Unit 133's "predecessor", Unit 1800, which was formed in the 1990s and disbanded after the 2006 Second Lebanon War.
"Like its predecessor, Unit 133 is responsible for attacks against Israel, and its expertise is forging connections with Palestinians and Arab Israelis, and setting up terrorist infrastructure," Beeri told JNS. The unit also seeks to activate terror cells in Jordan and Egypt in order to act against Israeli interests there – and also against Jordan and Egypt, since the two countries cooperate with the Jewish state.
Hezbollah's Unit 1800 was behind the deadly March 2002 shooting attack by two Palestinian terrorists on Israeli civilian vehicles near Kibbutz Metzuba that killed six people. The terrorists were shot dead by the IDF.
Cooperation with crime families
Unit 133 cooperates closely with Southern Lebanese crime families. According to Beeri, there are five such families who act as "bridging platforms from the crime world to elements inside of the State of Israel."
The families have experience in trafficking drugs and weapons into Israel, and Hezbollah hitched a ride on their abilities to build terror infrastructure.
After the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah disbanded Unit 1800 and set up Unit 133 in its place with the same role, but an expanded area of responsibility that stretched to Eastern Europe and Turkey, Beeri noted.
At that time, Harb stepped down from his role of commanding Unit 1800, according to Beeri, and Unit 133 received a new commander, Muhammad Ataya.
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"He then vanished from public sight. Today, in his 60s, he has amassed a lot of experience in working with crime families in Southern Lebanon with the aim to set up terror cells in Israel and the territories," Beeri said, which is why Hezbollah's senior leadership decided to recall him in recent months to Unit 133.
"We believe that he returned because the Hezbollah leadership was dissatisfied with the current performance of Unit 133," Beeri said.
The result is an uptick in cross-border smuggling efforts in recent months. It is likely that Israel thwarted several additional efforts as well.
"The atmoshpere along the border has changed," Beeri said.
On the Israeli side of operations, according to Hezbollah's planning, criminal elements receive the packages and either use them directly for missions given to them or pass them on to third parties that Hezbollah recruited, he added.
"The arms can be used for terrorist activities. The drugs are substitute payments. The criminals sell the drugs and take the money. In exchange, they act as bridging elements," Beeri explained. "This is the mechanism."
Reprinted with permission from JNS.org
