In this photo from December 13, 2018, Israeli soldiers stand guard next to cameras at their new position in front of a Hezbollah flag, near the Lebanese southern border village of Mays al-Jabal, Lebanon. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanese intelligence said Tuesday a Lebanese-Canadian dual national had been arrested on suspicion of spying for Israel.
“In the framework of pursuing operations to combat Israeli espionage… the directorate of General Security arrested a Lebanese-Canadian,” the General Security service said in a statement.
There were no details on exactly when or where the individual was detained.
The statement said the 40-year-old man confessed to being recruited in 2013 by a Lebanese fugitive it said belongs to an Israeli spying network described as “unit 504.”
He was ordered to recruit Lebanese agents to spy on Hezbollah and collect information on missing Israeli airman Ron Arad, a navigator whose plane was shot down over Lebanon in 1986 and was thought to have been handed over to the Shiite group, the statement said.
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This picture taken on December 4, 2018 from the southern Lebanese village of Kafr Kila shows a view of the border with Israel, with Israeli vehicles driving on the right side and UN and Lebanese vehicles driving on the left. (Ali Dia/AFP)
Lebanon and Israel remain technically in a state of war, with occasional skirmishes along their shared border.
In 2006, a Hezbollah attack on an Israeli border patrol sparked a month-long war with the Jewish state that devastated parts of Lebanon.
Hezbollah, a terror group which holds sway over much of Lebanon’s southern border region, is funded and armed by its patron Iran.
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Between April 2009 and 2014, Lebanese authorities detained more than 100 people accused of spying for Israel, most of them members of the military or telecom employees.
Such arrests have been less frequent recently.
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