JERUSALEM, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Israel charged eight Arabs on
Wednesday with smuggling in explosives from Lebanon on behalf of
Hezbollah militants for the purpose of attacks in the Jewish
state, the Justice Ministry said.
Israel fought an inconclusive 2006 border war with
Iranian-backed Hezbollah and tensions have risen again lately
amid fears of a wider conflict should the Israelis make good on
threats to bomb Iran's disputed nuclear programme.
Hezbollah, a Shi'ite Muslim movement that dominates south
Lebanon near the frontier with northern Israel, has also sworn
to avenge the 2008 assassination in Syria of its military
commander, Imad Moughniyeh, which it blamed on the Jewish state.
Israel's Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency said in a
statement that 20 kg (45 pounds) of explosives and detonators
were brought across the Lebanese border into the
Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in early June by the suspects,
most of whom believed the contraband they were handling was
drugs.
Shin Bet said the eight Arabs were arrested in July in
Ghajar, a Golan town on the border with Lebanon, and in
Nazareth, an Arab town in northern Israel. It did not say
whether anyone was arrested for organising the alleged plot.
A lawyer representing some of the eight Arabs said on
Israeli army radio that they denied the charges.
The explosives haul was enough for "a wave of serious
terrorist attacks in Israel," the Shin Bet said, noting that 3
kg (7 pounds) of explosives were used in a July 18 bombing at an
airport in Bulgaria that killed five Israeli tourists.
Israel blamed that attack on Hezbollah and Iran, which
denied the accusation.
The Justice Ministry listed a number of charges the Arab
suspects faced, including aiding an enemy in war, having contact
with foreign agents and several drug-related offences.
Some of the suspects are Israeli citizens and others are
from Ghajar, whose residents feel loyalty to Syria - from which
Israel captured the Golan in a 1967 war - but have Israeli
identity cards and can travel freely in the Jewish state.
(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Mark Heinrich)