An Israeli-Arab drug-dealer who passed information to Hizbullah during the Second Lebanon War was sentenced to six years in jail Thursday.
The man, 30-year-old Raed Mazareb, from the Galilee village of Mazareb, had sought out ways to smuggle drugs into Israel from Lebanon. He asked Bedouin tracker Iyad Rahael, who served in the IDF, for assistance, as he had had heard he could provide him with connections. Rahael obliged and also provided him with codes to use.
Mazareb got in touch with the dealer and supplied him with an Israeli cell phone SIM card to enable unmonitored contact. The Shabak (General Security Service) received intelligence information, however, and tapped Mazareb's phone.
After the war broke out, the Lebanese drug dealer inquired as to where Katyusha missiles fired by Hizbullah had fallen. Mazareb provided the dealer with detailed information, as well as information about IDF troop movements.
After the Air Force struck the Hizbullah stronghold of Dahiya, a neighborhood of Beirut, Mazareb provided information on the IDF’s methodology of using blimps to locate targets. The court ruled that Mazareb knew that the other drug dealer was indeed a Hizbullah operative.
Mazareb’s father had served in an elite unit in the IDF and was wounded. He asked that the court take his service into consideration in sentencing his son . Mazareb's lawyers also argued in court that the information provided to Hizbullah was not of much value to the terror group.
The judge rejected the argument, saying it is not up to citizens to decide which intelligence information given to the enemy is dangerous and which is not. He did, however, take the elder Muzareb's service into account in handing down the relatively light sentence of six years.
The man, 30-year-old Raed Mazareb, from the Galilee village of Mazareb, had sought out ways to smuggle drugs into Israel from Lebanon. He asked Bedouin tracker Iyad Rahael, who served in the IDF, for assistance, as he had had heard he could provide him with connections. Rahael obliged and also provided him with codes to use.
Mazareb got in touch with the dealer and supplied him with an Israeli cell phone SIM card to enable unmonitored contact. The Shabak (General Security Service) received intelligence information, however, and tapped Mazareb's phone.
After the war broke out, the Lebanese drug dealer inquired as to where Katyusha missiles fired by Hizbullah had fallen. Mazareb provided the dealer with detailed information, as well as information about IDF troop movements.
After the Air Force struck the Hizbullah stronghold of Dahiya, a neighborhood of Beirut, Mazareb provided information on the IDF’s methodology of using blimps to locate targets. The court ruled that Mazareb knew that the other drug dealer was indeed a Hizbullah operative.
Mazareb’s father had served in an elite unit in the IDF and was wounded. He asked that the court take his service into consideration in sentencing his son . Mazareb's lawyers also argued in court that the information provided to Hizbullah was not of much value to the terror group.
The judge rejected the argument, saying it is not up to citizens to decide which intelligence information given to the enemy is dangerous and which is not. He did, however, take the elder Muzareb's service into account in handing down the relatively light sentence of six years.