The Shin Bet domestic security service revealed Thursday it had arrested an East Jerusalem woman on suspicion she was recruited by Hezbollah and Iranian army officials to spy against Israel.
Yasmin Jaber, a staffer with the National Library at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was arrested by the agency, along with several other acquaintances from East Jerusalem and Ramallah, who are suspected of having been involved in the secret cell.
The woman is said to have appeared on Hezbollah's radar after attending a Palestinian youth conference in Lebanon in 2015, set up by the group to scout out potential recruits.
During another visit to Lebanon in 2016, she was approached by members from Hezbollah and Iran's Quds Force - one of Revolutionary Guard Corps' units.
Once back in Israel, she remained in touch with her handlers on social media through coded messages and also met with them several times in Turkey to receive orders and pass intelligence information.
According to Shin Bet, her mission was to recruit more agents, specifically women, and form a clandestine cell in Israel to gather intelligence and information for possible future terrorist activities.
“This Shin Bet investigation is the product of a lengthy intelligence operation to locate those suspected of being recruited by Hezbollah. It is another step in the counterterrorism efforts carried out in the past year against Quds Force and Hezbollah's attempts to recruit Israeli Arabs,” a senior Shin Bet official said in a statement.