East Jerusalem woman arrested for allegedly spying for Hezbollah

Israeli authorities have arrested an East Jerusalem woman who the Shin Bet security service says spied for Hezbollah.

The Shin Bet last month arrested Yasmin Jaber, a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem who works for the National Library at Hebrew University, on charges of working for the Lebanese terror group.

The Shin Bet claims that Jaber was recruited during an international “youth conference” in Lebanon in 2015, which Hezbollah exploited to locate and recruit Israeli Arabs as agents.

Since her recruitment by the Lebanese terror group, Jaber communicated with her Hezbollah handler through secret messages on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, according to the Shin Bet.

“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 attempts to recruit Israeli Arabs,” a senior Shin Bet official says in a statement.

Earlier this year, the Shin Bet accused Beirut Hamoud, an Arab Israeli woman living in Lebanon, of working to recruit Israeli citizens as operatives for the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group. Hamoud denied the claims, saying that she had merely been meeting with old friends of hers.

The Shin Bet says an indictment for Jaber will be issued in the coming days.

— Aaron Boxerman