Diab Kahamuz
Ghajar resident sentenced to 14 years for Hezbollah terror plot
Diab Kahamuz smuggled explosives provided by Hezbollah into Israel and scouted locations to carry out an attack in the Haifa area; judges give him jail time and NIS 120,000 fine, acquitting him of espionage charge but convicting him of aiding an enemy during wartime.
The Nazareth District Court sentenced a resident of the village of Ghajar to 14 years in prison after he was convicted of smuggling explosives from Hezbollah into Israel in order to carry out an attack.
The plot was foiled after the defendant, Diab Kahamuz, had forgotten where he had hidden the explosives, which were later discovered by an Israeli farmer.
Kahamuz was also ordered to pay a NIS 120,000 fine.
Diab Kahamuz, in the top right-hand corner, with his accomplices
While he was acquitted of espionage charges, Kahamuz was convicted of aiding an enemy during wartime, having contact with a foreign agent, weapons offenses and conspiring to commit a crime.
Kahamuz is the son of Saeb Kahamuz, a drug dealer and Hezbollah member who escaped to Lebanon during the 2006 Second Lebanon War. Saeb allegedly contacted his son using encrypted emails, suggesting that Diab used his drug smuggling infrastructure to smuggle explosives from Lebanon into Israel. The senior Kahamuz also told his son how to directly contact Hezbollah operatives.
Among Diab's accomplices are his two brothers—Jamil and Yussef Kahamuz, their cousin Mohssan Kahamuz and two other residents of Ghajar—Adal Ayunat and Ibrahim Mamdouh.
Jamil and Yussef Kahamuz and other accomplices were sentenced to prison terms ranging between two to three years.
On July 30, a farmer from the northern city of Metula found a bag containing two explosive devices in a grove near Highway 90. Explosives experts who examined the two bombs, which had delay fuses and were found to be very powerful, determined they were made by Hezbollah.
An investigation by the Israel Police and the Shin Bet found that the explosives were smuggled into Israel from Lebanon in May. Diab, who retrieved the explosives after they were thrown over the border fence, put them in a bag and hid them in the grove.
He was instructed to use the explosives to carry out bombings in crowded places in Haifa.
Diab scouted the locations he was instructed to target but decided they were unsuitable due to the tight security and numerous cameras. Instead, Diab suggested to his father and their handlers to plant the explosives in other areas, including the nearby northern city of Nesher. He allegedly brought his two brothers, Yussef and Jamil, in on the plan, planning to use the latter's help in carrying out the attack.
Later, Diab went to retrieve the explosives from their hiding place but was unable to locate them.
"The case before us is one of the cases in which citizens of the State of Israel knowingly and intentionally aid an enemy in its war against the state, having contact with agents of the enemy, and demonstrating spectacular audacity in smuggling explosives inside the borders of the state," the judges noted in their sentence.
"We do not see any importance to the fact he was eventually arrested without having committed the attack," the judges then explained. "His willingness to bring additional explosives into the country... reflects in our view his desire to continue carrying out the dangerous criminal activity."
