Lebanese national used social media to recruit Arabs from the PA and Jerusalem to collect intel and carry out attacks on Israelis.

Released for publication: The Israel Security Agency (ISA) has foiled several terrorist attacks being planned by Lebanese national Salah Switi, also known as Abu Ghassan, a former Hezbollah operative who has connections in the PA and Gaza Strip.

During the ISA operation, security forces arrested two residents of eastern Jerusalem holding Israeli identity cards and who were in contact with Abu Ghassan. Under his guidance, the two carried out reconnaissance missions and photographed sites in Israel, mainly in Jerusalem, with the intent of carrying out terrorist attacks.

The ISA investigation shows that Abu Ghassan found potential operatives from Judea, Samaria, and eastern Jerusalem via social media, especially TikTok.

When first making contact with potential recruits, Abu Ghassan would focus on small talk and general conversation, discussing the situation in Jerusalem and confrontations between Jews and Arabs. Later, as is typical in the Hezbollah enlistment process, the operative would move the conversation to the Telegram messenger app, where he would ask his contacts to undertake tasks that appeared to pose no danger to them, such as taking photos and videos of potential targets.

As time went on and the connections strengthened, Abu Ghassan would instruct his operatives to put the attacks against Israeli citizens in motion while ignoring the potential danger to the operatives and their families.

Source: Arutz 7