Lebanon says Israeli ‘agent’ arrested over anti-Hamas attack

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanon’s army says it has arrested a suspected agent of Israel’s spy agency Mossad over a failed bid to assassinate a Hamas official in the south of the country.

In January 2018, Mohammed Hamdan, a security official with the Lebanese branch of Hamas, was wounded in the leg in a car bomb blast in the southern Lebanese port city of Sidon. Lebanon and Hamas blamed Israel for the attack, and days after the January 14 blast Beirut authorities said they had arrested a man suspected of involvement in the car bombing.

A statement at the time said he was “one of the main perpetrators of the crime, who confessed to being tasked by Israeli intelligence.”

Today, the Lebanese army says in a statement a second male suspect “who carried out surveillance” before last year’s bombing had also been arrested. The second suspect “has admitted to being a Mossad agent since 2014,” it says, without specifying his nationality.

— AFP