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Arrest in Beirut
Lebanese authorities arrested a man close to Hezbollah, accusing him of spying for Israel and of providing intel that led to the killing of commanders in the Iran-backed group, a judicial official told AFP on Tuesday.
“A 'result of years of intelligence gathering”
The judicial official said "a high-level Israeli agent was arrested last week in Beirut," and alleged the suspect had been "involved in providing the Israeli side with precise information that led to the assassination of Hezbollah officials, including four top-tier security leaders."
The official said the man was detained last week at Beirut’s airport as he prepared to board a flight to Iraq, and that he hails from southern Lebanon where Hezbollah holds sway.
The same official said the detainee made several trips to Iraq, where his wife is from, and used to go to Turkey to meet with officers and agents linked to the Israeli Mossad.
The official did not specify the identity of the Hezbollah leaders targeted by Israel nor the date of their deaths, while the report noted that Hassan Nasrallah was killed by Israel in a major strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs in September 2024.
Claims and counter-claims
The AFP-linked judicial account described the detainee as "very close to commanders in Hezbollah" and said he "possessed a wide range of information due to his relationship with them."
The Times of Israel report also placed the arrest within a wider pattern, saying Lebanese security services have arrested dozens of people on suspicion of working for Israel, many of whom were allegedly recruited online following the country’s economic collapse beginning in 2019.
It further said that in October a judicial source told AFP that more than 30 people had been arrested on suspicion of providing Israel with precise information on Hezbollah facilities and the movements of its members during its previous war with Israel in 2023 and 2024.
The same AFP-linked reporting said people convicted of working for Israel have been sentenced to up to 25 years in prison in the past.
Separately, the i24NEWS live blog framed the broader Israel-Hamas-Israel-Hezbollah conflict through a meeting in Istanbul, stating that "La rencontre s’est tenue à Istanbul" as part of a truce agreement in progress.
Regional war backdrop
The Lebanon arrest story sits alongside ongoing claims of strikes and threats in the wider Israel-Hezbollah conflict, with Nice-Matin saying Israel’s army claimed it had struck "more than 2,000 targets deemed terrorist in Lebanon" since the start of its operation against Hezbollah.
“LIVE BLOG | Gaza : le chef du renseignement turc échange avec le Hamas sur la deuxième phase de la trêve La rencontre s’est tenue à Istanbul, dans le cadre de l’accord de trêve en cours”
Nice-Matin also reported that "Enemy Israeli warplanes struck at dawn" in the Tyre and Bint Jbeil districts, and said Israeli forces hit five other towns in the south of the country.
In the same reporting stream, France’s foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot called on Tehran on Friday to make major concessions, while Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi condemned the United States’ use of British military bases in a call with British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper.
The Jeune Afrique investigation framed the Israel-Hezbollah confrontation as extending beyond Lebanon and Israel, describing "part of the confrontation between Mossad and Hezbollah" as played out on the African continent.
Against that backdrop, the AFP-linked judicial account said the Lebanese authorities did not specify the identity of the Hezbollah leaders targeted by Israel, but it asserted that the alleged information provided included "four top-tier security leaders" and that the detainee had been detained at Beirut’s airport while preparing to board a flight to Iraq.
