Ghajar man indicted as Hizbullah spy

Mahmoud Hattib admitted passing info on IDF activity to Hizbullah operative.

By REBECCA ANNA STOIL
ghajar AP 298 88 (photo credit: AP [file])
ghajar AP 298 88
(photo credit: AP [file])
A Ghajar resident was indicted Wednesday on charges of spying for Hizbullah over a nine-month period that culminated in his arrest in July. Mahmoud Hattib, 41, was arrested on July 31 after a joint investigation by police and the Shin Bet. He has admitted to passing information on IDF activity in the vicinity of Ghajar, a divided Lebanese-Israeli border village, to a Hizbullah operative and a reporter from the Hizbullah-run Al-Manar television station. Hattib was indicted in Nazareth District Court on charges of contact with a foreign agent, transferring information to the enemy, intent to harm national security, destroying evidence and obstruction of justice. He was allegedly in contact with the Al-Manar journalist, who in turn, allegedly helped him establish contact with a source suspected of being a Hizbullah operative. Hattib is suspected of passing information to the journalist and to the second source beginning in November 2005. Concerned that he would be found out after IDF forces entered Lebanon in July, Hattib asked his son to destroy a cellphone, which police said was used to contact Hizbullah agents. This was not the first instance of Hizbullah's receiving insider information on IDF activities from Israeli Arabs. Riyad Mazariv, 30, a Beduin from Beit Zarzir, was arrested last month and indicted August 10 on charges of giving a Lebanese drug trafficker associated with Hizbullah information on IDF operations in exchange for drugs that were smuggled through Ghajar.