Germany jails Lebanese-born man for supplying Hezbollah with drone equipment
35-year-old convicted of exporting $580,000-worth of components to Iran-backed terror group was born in one of its strongholds and brought up in its ideology, court says
BERLIN — A German court on Tuesday jailed a 35-year-old man for supplying Iran-backed Lebanese terror group Hezbollah with equipment for drones.
The Lebanese man, previously named as Fadel Z. in accordance with German privacy laws, was convicted of offenses including “membership of a foreign terrorist organization” and being “an accomplice to attempted murder.”
The court in the city of Celle sentenced him to six years and four months in prison. It found that Fadel Z. had joined Hezbollah at some point after July 2016.
It said that by 2022 he had organized exports of “militarily useful goods” to the tune of 500,000 euros ($580,000) in order to help Hezbollah’s drone program. The components he delivered included material for more than 300 explosive drones.
The man was arrested in summer 2024. The court noted that he was “born in a Hezbollah stronghold in Lebanon and was brought up with the ideology of the terror organization.”
Prosecutors had demanded a jail sentence of nine years but the court decided on a lower term partly because Fadel Z. had admitted some of the offenses and thereby sped up the trial.
Hezbollah’s military wing is classed as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Britain. Germany considers Hezbollah a “Shi’ite terrorist organization” and in 2020 banned Hezbollah from carrying out activities on its soil.
Hezbollah last week started launching rockets and drones at Israel for the first time since their November 2024 ceasefire agreement, which ended over a year of conflict initiated by the terror group.
Hezbollah has cast the attacks as a response to both the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei at the start of the US-Israeli bombing campaign in Iran on February 28, and Israel’s continued strikes and presence in Lebanon following the agreement.
Israel had regularly carried out airstrikes in Lebanon, accusing Hezbollah of ceasefire violations, and also held on to five border points in south Lebanon, citing security concerns.
Israel has responded to the renewed Hezbollah attacks with massive airstrikes on the terror group’s strongholds in south Beirut and in Lebanon’s east and south.
The US-Israeli campaign against Iran followed a large US military buildup in the region and repeated threats by US President Donald Trump to strike Iran, first over its brutal crackdown on anti-regime protesters in January and more recently over its nuclear program.
The Times of Israel Community.