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Iranian efforts to enlist Judea and Samaria residents exposed, 2 arrested

Shin Bet arrests two Palestinians recruited by Hezbollah, Quds Force for terror operations.

By JNS

The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) revealed on Monday that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force and its Lebanese terrorist proxy Hezbollah tried to recruit residents of Judea and Samaria to commit terrorist attacks.

Yusuf Mansour and Marsil Mansour were arrested in recent months. The investigation found that efforts to recruit them as part of a terror operation were made by Hezbollah and the pair agreed to smuggle weapons inside the Green Line and sell them while assisting criminal elements in Israel.

Mansour agreed to gather information about Israel Defense Forces activities in Judea and Samaria and inside the Green Line and to recruit additional operatives, the investigation also revealed.

According to the Israel Security Agency, the appeals came from Hezbollah operatives Huda Mahana and Haj Muhammad Radwan, who is also known as Mohammed Bashir. Mansour is accused of communicating with them through encryption software and a dedicated email address.

Intelligence information indicates that Mahana and Radwan are part of a Quds Force unit headed by Saeed Izadi that assists Palestinian terrorist organizations in the Palestinian Authority.

According to Jason Brodsky, an expert on leadership dynamics in Iran and the IRGC, Izadi spearheaded rocket fire into Israel from Syria in 2015 and has been working behind the scenes on the latest escalations.

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The Shin Bet “takes a serious view of attempts by Iran and its proxies to establish secret infrastructures in Israel that are intended to carry out terrorist activities against the citizens of Israel, and will continue to work together with the security forces in order to locate and thwart in advance any activity that endangers the security of the state,” the agency said.