Yitzhak Wasserlauf, Israel’s minister for the Negev, Galilee and National Resilience, said Sunday that security agencies had identified attempts by Hezbollah to gain a foothold in Upper Galilee city of Kiryat Shmona through apartment purchases by Arab citizens of the Jewish state.
“Hezbollah used Israeli Arabs to purchase apartments in Kiryat Shmona during the war in order to try to take control of the city from within,” the minister said behind closed doors at the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, according to Hebrew media reports.
An official with knowledge of the matter told JNS on Sunday that during a previous Cabinet meeting, the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) presented ministers with an assessment that some Islamic movements based in Israel were actively working to create more mixed Arab-Jewish cities.
According to the Shin Bet assessment, since the start of the war on Oct. 7, 2023, attempts to purchase homes in Kiryat Shmona by Arabs who were encouraged by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization have been identified, the source told JNS.
The suspicion is still being investigated by the Shin Bet and the National Security Council, according to the source.
Wasserlauf asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday to convene a discussion on property tax benefits for business owners in Kiryat Shmona, citing the absence of a serving interior minister.
The minister’s request reportedly led to a discussion on the situation in the city, most of whose roughly 25,000 residents were evacuated during the more than 12 months of cross-border fighting with Hezbollah that followed Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.
Wasserlauf was said to have mentioned Hezbollah’s efforts to turn Kiryat Shmona into a mixed city and called for a special Cabinet meeting to be held there.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich reportedly said that national considerations would be required to justify specific policy decisions. However, Netanyahu said that, based on Wasserlauf’s remarks, the matter was not just a national issue but an international one.
At the conclusion of the discussion, the prime minister instructed that the Ministerial Committee for the Negev and Galilee, which is chaired by Wasserlauf, be convened to put together a comprehensive plan for the post-war rehabilitation and development of Kiryat Shmona.
Growing radicalization
A poll conducted in 2023 by the Israel Democracy Institute’s Center for Democratic Values and Institutions found that one third of Arab citizens disagreed with the statement that Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre “does not reflect Arab society, the Palestinian people and the Islamic nation.”
A June 2024 survey found that some 14.7% of Arab Israelis believe that Hamas should govern Gaza after the war, in direct opposition to one of Jerusalem’s leading war aims. That represents approximately 308,700 Israeli citizens out of an Arab Israeli population of some 2.1 million.
On Dec. 19, 2024, prosecutors filed an indictment against a resident of Nazareth following his arrest for transferring intelligence information to Hezbollah during a weeklong Israeli military operation inside Lebanon.
The Shin Bet and Israel Police said their probe revealed Muhammad Saadi had been in contact with the terrorists and had expressed a desire to join them in the Land of the Cedars.
That same month, two Jerusalem residents were charged with providing information to the Lebanese terrorist army. According to the charges, Abd al-Salam Qawasameh and Taar Asili, both in their 30s, were in contact with a woman named “Diana,” a Hezbollah operative.
Qawasameh was accused of sending “Diana” pictures of the coastal town of Caesarea, where Netanyahu’s private residence is located. Asili allegedly sent news articles to the terrorists about Israel and the security situation, according to the indictment.
The two men were also asked to speak with a senior Hezbollah “intelligence officer.” According to the charges filed, Asili bought a SIM card to make contact with the officer, but refused a request to take photos of Metula, a northern border town that was under constant threat from Hezbollah.
The indictments came after a truce, which went into effect on Nov. 27, 2024, ended 13 months of war with Hezbollah. The conflict saw near-daily rocket, missile and drone attacks on northern Israel, starting on Oct. 8, 2023, the day after the Hamas-led massacre in the south.
