"I once knew a contractor who said he had a 'distribution line.' He'd receive several women from the other side of the border, leave them in the tribe for a week or two, and then 'distribute.' I'd wake up in the morning and see women standing with information cards about who to call, asking me where the 'club hotel' is. They knew they'd be in jail for two weeks, then go out to work. Unfortunately, it was a completely free market. All the smugglers needed to make it an organized border crossing was duty free. And now? Now it's drones and weapons."

You've probably seen the video Oksana filmed. With desert indifference, the metallic buzzing emerges from the horizon. A drone penetrates from Egypt to Israel undisturbed and wanders in Israel's skies like a homeless person at a wedding. Somehow, this video went viral and "jolted" public attention from its slumber. Israeli media also rushed to cover the phenomenon from Tel Aviv studios, and this week, it was reported that hundreds of drones had penetrated the area in recent months. Indeed, the phenomenon is neither new nor rare.

Topaz Kaplan (43), also from Kadesh Barnea, is the new Israeli farmer. A redhead by nature, with a pistol in his pocket, by day he grows onions and four children, and at night is a member of the Peled team. "The Peled team is a body we established here, in the Nitzana opening settlements, inspired by LOTAR Eilat. We established an intervention team here that provides a quick response to any incident that might come. We did this following the 'burning wheels' attack (a coordinated terror attack that occurred in August 2012 at the Israel-Egypt-Gaza Strip border junction.) We knew that if something happened here – there wouldn't be a quick response from forces, so we established the team and started training.

"On October 7, at a very early hour, we were already alerted and left Nitzana opening. The team commander was a good friend of Southern Brigade Commander Col. Asaf Hamami of blessed memory, and he called us to come. We drove north via the operational road, along the border, and arrived from below, surprising a battalion of Nukhba forces on their way to Moshav Sdei Avraham and settlements in the south.

"They engaged us on the road, and that's where Yiftach Gurney of blessed memory was killed, a team member from Be'er Milka, but that engagement also stopped their entire attack toward the southern Strip. From there, we reached Holit, and there Liran Almosnino of blessed memory was killed, a friend from Moshav Kamhin. You see that tree there, the lone one by the border? We called it 'Liran's tree,' because he always made stops there. During Sukkot, they'll also open a mountain bike single track trail, which will be in memory of Yiftach, who was a cyclist in the area."

Topaz navigates the jeep with native skill. Where's the amusement park and where's the roller coaster between desert hills and dry riverbed cliffs, on the road leading to Flag Hill – an observation point over the area where an Israeli flag flies for miles. "My plot ends at the edge of the border," Topaz points with his finger to a green wonder in the brown that ends by the fence. "A large part of the chases after smugglers happen in my field – and that means lots of damage. Look, this morning I had to report that a military patrol crushed my water pipeline, simply because the chase passed there. It's become part of our routine."

From Flag Hill, you can clearly see the tangles of Israeli bureaucracy. Topaz marks the areas of responsibility: "From the fence to the settlement – that's the army's. After that, it's the Shin Bet's and police's. So a drone that crosses the border and flies a kilometer inland, who's supposed to stop it? And if the vehicle waiting for it by the fence left the border area and managed to escape inland, who will chase it?"

We descend from the hill and approach Topaz's fields. On the way, we wave hello to a thermal camera that Ramat Negev Regional Council installed on a hill above the border. Another layer of security that doesn't really contribute to the sense of security. The Thai workers' residences are in the frontier area at the edge of the moshav, near the fields, and Topaz clarifies that the drone phenomenon also has implications for livelihood capability in the place.

"A few weeks ago one of the Thais simply got up in the morning, and without saying a word got on a bus and left. When the drone passes, the Egyptians allow themselves to shoot without asking permission and without anything. It directly affects our livelihood. Look at the quarters they sleep in, suddenly bursts start being heard in quantities from the direction of the Egyptian positions. You're sitting at home or in the greenhouse and hearing gunfire. It's not far, it's here, above you, beside you."

I look at the Thai workers' caravans, measure with my eye the distance from them to the Egyptian guard tower, and understand that the Egyptians could hit the caravans with a stone. The Israeli mind, accustomed to a distant border, refuses to understand how one can live so close.

Topaz clarifies the impact of proximity on daily life: "The Thais didn't come to wake up in the middle of the night from bursts. Every morning we wake up and ask if the workers stayed or fled, and I don't blame them. You also wouldn't want your child to sleep on this border, even if the shooting at the drones is 'supposedly' not at you."

"They know that if they pass over our settlements the IDF won't shoot them down to not endanger residents' lives. But these drones endanger the State of Israel," Doron marks on the map with a red laser pen the smuggling route from Egypt to Beersheba.

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Israel is closely monitoring Turkey's attempts to establish itself in Syria amid concerns that the weakened Iranian axis could be replaced by equally radical elements on Israel's doorstep. According to information obtained by Israel Hayom, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been addressing this issue since the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime, particularly following Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's recent decision to deploy significant forces in Syria.

New data emerging now sheds light on the reason for Israeli vigilance: In 2023 alone, the largest number of weapons smuggling attempts into Israel originated from Turkey.

Netanyahu has been forced to address this issue following exceptional findings at border crossings that indicated that parallel to the Iranian smuggling route through Jordan to the West Bank, an equally extensive route operates through Turkey. Since October 7, Turkey has increasingly aligned itself with Hamas, with its leaders even providing safe haven for the organization's continued activities.

Hamas "charity" funds operating freely in Turkey have been collecting money to finance the organization's terrorism for many years. The Turkish-global threat intersects again with Israel at this point where Assad's regime has fallen and Syria has created a vacuum that could invite new-old threats facing the Golan Heights.

While the IDF tactically focuses on eliminating the Assad army's capabilities, some worry Israel is again missing the strategy: preventing another murderous regime with Nazi ideology from growing on our doorstep – Assad, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, or Erdogan – it's all the same thing.

Regional sources expressed doubts to Israel regarding rebel leader al-Julani's recent polished speech and requested Israeli vigilance regarding what's to come. Others warning Israel include Syrian Kurds and Druze, who fear falling into the hands of the Turks and al-Julani's men.

Defense Minister Israel Katz addressed developments in Syria during Monday's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting, saying in the closed session that "The main reason for the Assad regime's fall is the rebels' sense that the Iranian axis has significantly weakened, a feeling that prompted them to act." Katz added, "We must be prepared for all scenarios and prevent the formation of a tangible threat to Golan residents and to avoid returning to the pre-October 7 reality of invasion threats into Israeli territory."

Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee member MK Amit Halevi has already approached Netanyahu twice on this matter, requesting to examine the possibility of actively working toward Syria's redistribution into "cantons," an issue also being examined by top defense officials. "We currently face a clear danger that Syria will become a regional center of radical Islam and Erdogan's imperialist ambitions," Halevi wrote to Netanyahu. "Therefore, it is crucial that, especially during these days, Israel's government initiates an international conference to reorganize international borders within Syria and with its neighbors. This is necessary to ensure state security and prevent the establishment of a neo-Nazi regime in the spirit of extreme Islam."

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Earlier this month, the IDF and Israel Police announced that they had thwarted a significant weapons-smuggling attempt from Lebanon into Israel. A total of 43 firearms worth millions of shekels were confiscated near the area of the Ghajar village on July 9, the security forces said, after IDF observation troops spotted suspects smuggling bags.

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In its statement, the IDF said it was "examining the possibility that the smuggling attempt was carried out with the help of the Hezbollah terror organization, and investigating, together with the Israel Police, the perpetrators of the weapon-smuggling attempt."

The IDF is investigating the involvement of a senior Hezbollah operative, Haj Khalil Harb, notorious for trafficking narcotics and weapons along the Blue Line separating Israel and Lebanon.

Harb has served as a security advisor to the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, and as a commander for the terrorist organiztion's top units. He was also linked to another trafficking run in June, in which 15 guns and dozens of kilograms of drugs were confiscated.

These developments point to a more significant event – the expanded activities of Hezbollah's dangerous Unit 133, which orchestrates terror attacks in Israel and Judea and Samaria, according to Maj. (res.) Tal Beeri, director at the Alma reserach center's department that sheds light on security threats to Israel from Syria and Lebanon.

According to Beeri, a former IDF intelligence officer, Harb may have been appointed in recent months to assist Unit 133 and possibly lead it. The development comes as no coincidence since he is the former commander of the Unit 133's "predecessor", Unit 1800, which was formed in the 1990s and disbanded after the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

"Like its predecessor, Unit 133 is responsible for attacks against Israel, and its expertise is forging connections with Palestinians and Arab Israelis, and setting up terrorist infrastructure," Beeri told JNS. The unit also seeks to activate terror cells in Jordan and Egypt in order to act against Israeli interests there – and also against Jordan and Egypt, since the two countries cooperate with the Jewish state.

Hezbollah's Unit 1800 was behind the deadly March 2002 shooting attack by two Palestinian terrorists on Israeli civilian vehicles near Kibbutz Metzuba that killed six people. The terrorists were shot dead by the IDF.

Cooperation with crime families

Unit 133 cooperates closely with Southern Lebanese crime families. According to Beeri, there are five such families who act as "bridging platforms from the crime world to elements inside of the State of Israel."

The families have experience in trafficking drugs and weapons into Israel, and Hezbollah hitched a ride on their abilities to build terror infrastructure.

After the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah disbanded Unit 1800 and set up Unit 133 in its place with the same role, but an expanded area of responsibility that stretched to Eastern Europe and Turkey, Beeri noted.

At that time, Harb stepped down from his role of commanding Unit 1800, according to Beeri, and Unit 133 received a new commander, Muhammad Ataya.

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"He then vanished from public sight. Today, in his 60s, he has amassed a lot of experience in working with crime families in Southern Lebanon with the aim to set up terror cells in Israel and the territories," Beeri said, which is why Hezbollah's senior leadership decided to recall him in recent months to Unit 133.

"We believe that he returned because the Hezbollah leadership was dissatisfied with the current performance of Unit 133," Beeri said.

The result is an uptick in cross-border smuggling efforts in recent months. It is likely that Israel thwarted several additional efforts as well.

"The atmoshpere along the border has changed," Beeri said.

On the Israeli side of operations, according to Hezbollah's planning, criminal elements receive the packages and either use them directly for missions given to them or pass them on to third parties that Hezbollah recruited, he added.

"The arms can be used for terrorist activities. The drugs are substitute payments. The criminals sell the drugs and take the money. In exchange, they act as bridging elements," Beeri explained. "This is the mechanism."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

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Israeli security forces foiled a plot to smuggle a large stash of weapons into Israel through the Lebanese border, the IDF said on Saturday.

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An investigation was ongoing to ascertain whether the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, which controls much of the south of Lebanon, was behind the attempt to smuggle in the 43 guns and other items of ammunition seized on Friday.

The overall worth of the weapons was estimated at some NIS 2.7 million ($823,000), making it the biggest smuggling attempt in recent years.

The sting operation was carried out near the Golan Heights village of Ghajar. The IDF statement cited no arrests.

In the past, weapons smuggled from Lebanese territory into Israel had been used for terrorist activities, notably on behalf of Hezbollah.

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It was the fifth operation to intercept illicit contraband from Lebanon that Israeli security forces have carried out since the start of 2021, the statement said.

This article was first published by i24NEWS.

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"The Security Council must extend the arms embargo on Iran to prevent further conflict in the region," Pompeo told a State Department news conference. "No serious person can possibly believe Iran will use any weapon it receives for peaceful ends."

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Pompeo is leading a US drive to persuade the Security Council to extend the embargo due to expire in mid-October under the terms of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal from which the United States withdrew in 2018.

He took his appeal directly to the council last week, with an address to its 15 members. But veto-wielding Russia and China signaled their opposition to an extension.

At his news conference, Pompeo said that US and unidentified "partner" forces interdicted a vessel off Yemen's coast on June 28 that was carrying Iranian arms to Houthi rebels.

"Iran is not abiding by the UN arms embargo that is due to expire in less than four months now," he said.

The weapons, he said, included 200 rocket-propelled grenades, more than 1,700 assault rifles, 21 surface-to-air and surface-to-surface missiles, several anti-tank missiles "and other advanced weapons and missiles."

Iran-aligned Houthi rebels have been fighting the Yemeni government, backed by a Saudi-led coalition, since 2015.

Pompeo noted that a report by US Secretary General Antonio Guterres last week confirmed US charges that weapons seized by US forces in November 2019 and February 2020 were "of Iranian origin."

Iran's mission to the United Nations said there were "serious flaws, inaccuracies, and discrepancies" in Guterres's report.

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But it isn't from a TV show or from South America. In this case, this is the Middle East version of reality – the man in the picture is Amar Shweiki, a Syrian businessman who functions as one of the region's main conduits for illicit money transfers and someone who is helping Iran skirt sanctions as well as fund Hezbollah and other groups.

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The Iranian method, which has become a sort of agreement between Tehran and Damascus, works like this: Syria is heavily indebted to Russia for the weapons and other aid that Russia has provided to it. Because of the current sanctions, Syria cannot pay those debts directly. Iran covered part of the debt through a variety of methods, including barrels of oil. In exchange, Syria took hundreds of millions of dollars in cash out of its central bank and passed it on to Hezbollah.

This method, which was used until Iran found itself under new sanctions last year, allowed both Syria and Iran to "play by the rules." Syria wasn't violating the sanctions against its regime, because Iran was making the payments, and Iran wasn't in violation of the sanctions that forbid it to transfer money to Hezbollah, a terrorist organization, because Syria was making the payments. There were two main figures who were pulling the strings of the operation: Shweiki and Mohammad Jafar Qasir.

Israel Hayom reported extensively on the activity of Qasir, known as Hajj Fadi, last year. In a nutshell, he is the main man in charge of the logistics for Hezbollah, and he is much more important to Hezbollah than his "title" would suggest. His brother is married to the daughter of Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, and another brother became the first Hezbollah "martyr" when he was killed in the first Tyre Disaster in 1982. Hajj Fadi handles Hezbollah's complicated weapons smuggling activity and enjoys direct access to the leaderships in Tehran, Damascus, and Beirut. Last year, he was photographed in a meeting in Tehran, sitting between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Syrian President Bashar Assad. Another participant in that meeting was then-commander of Iran's Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Hajj Fadi is responsible for Hezbollah's weapons smuggling, but he is also deeply involved in the transfer of money. Because Hezbollah depends largely on cash, its smuggling apparatus moves the bills – dollars or euros – from Tehran to Beirut, mostly via Damascus. Shweiki is a key player in moving the money. According to Western intelligence officials, the picture mentioned earlier shows him sitting on $100 million – that's how great his self-confidence is. In the past few months, he's had to dial it back after he was added to a list of people and organizations subject to US Treasury Dept. sanctions in November 2018. These sanctions are important, but it's uncertain how effective they are: people like Hajj Fadi and Shweiki usually operate in the shadows and don't often leave their home field.

Nasrallah: Tighten your belts

For the past year, Hezbollah has been in serious financial trouble, partly because of changes that took place within the organization: thousands of its wounded who came back from Syria require rehabilitation, families of casualties need aid, and veterans are retiring. All this adds up to a heavy outlay for which the group never had to budget for in the past.

The other part of the financial crisis is the result of the stringent sanctions on Iran, which forced it to cut its support to Hezbollah (as well as other protégé groups, from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza to the Houthis in Yemen, as well as groups in Iraq and elsewhere). The current assessment is that Hezbollah now needs to slash its budget, which used to be $850-$900 million per year.

The crisis forced Nasrallah to declare "economic jihad" about six months ago. He made it clear to his people that they needed to know how to cope with periods of austerity. That is no minor matter, and not only because of the element of honor – Hezbollah funds a variety of activities. Israel naturally focuses on its military aspects, but as patron of the Shiite people in Lebanon and as a "Dawah" group that sponsors educational, cultural, and welfare activities as a way of bringing people closer to its goals, Hezbollah is having to maneuver very carefully to maintain its civilian activity, which is the base of its political power in Lebanon.

Iran is also having to tread carefully to keep funding Hezbollah under the new US sanctions. Last year, Western intelligence agencies revealed that Iran's central bank was in contact with Bedouin money changers to accept cash that it could distribute to the various organizations Iran funds in the region. The information was passed on to the Americans, who shut down that pipeline.

At the same time, it turned out that Iran was still operating straw companies, sometimes under fictitious names, to use in transferring money. One such conduit ran via al-Bilad Islamic Bank in Iraq; here, too, intelligence led to the American decision to sanction the bank for aiding and abetting terrorism.

Such creativity is necessary given Iran's growing difficulty in funding its "customers." According to prevailing assessments, Iran pays monthly salaries to some 100,000 soldiers for hire who are fighting on its behalf, mostly in the Middle East, but also in other places around the world. (Only the US pays for more soldiers on foreign soil.) That takes vast sums, and the sanctions make it difficult, certainly when the beneficiary is Hezbollah, a terrorist organization that is also barred from receiving money through regular bank transfers.

The result is that a large part of the financial activity is conducted in cash. A few days ago, a reporter with the Al Midan television station ran a video in which he counted the salary he received. He was paid in US dollars, as the Iranian rial is worthless in Lebanon and other countries in the region. That was a rare glimpse at how Hezbollah pays the salaries of its tens of thousands of operatives and employees. Incidentally, Hezbollah is seen as the second-largest employer in Lebanon, after the government.

The Iranians have a well-ordered plan to fund terrorism. The money comes in an annual budget that is agreed upon and subject to oversight after being passed by a number of committees. Most of the money is sent out through the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Forces' elite Quds Force, and in recent years, Syria has become the main axis along which the money, as well as weapons, is moved.

The hefty sanctions that the Trump administration issued this year against Iran after withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal have caused a major economic crisis in Iran. Oil production dropped from 2 million barrels per day to half a million, and oil exports face constant difficulties. Recently, the American administration put out a document in which it details how Iran tries to get around US sanctions. The document, which was aimed at governments in the Middle East and beyond, was designed to block the Iranian end-run around the sanctions.

These closing loopholes are forcing Iran to depend more on cash. The Quds Force isn't the only entity involved: the Iranian Foreign Ministry transfers some $100 million in cash to Hezbollah every year through the use of diplomatic passports. It is done by Iranian diplomats who arrive in Beirut on commercial flights carrying suitcases full of dollars and hand them off to Hezbollah members. The money itself can't be touched because it is defined as "diplomatic mail," and the couriers' diplomatic passports give them immunity. Although the names of the people involved and the dates of the money transfers are known to a variety of international officials, this money smuggling road has yet to be blocked.

The growing financial distress requires Hezbollah to play a major part in finding funding for its own activities, which means it must walk a thin line: in addition to the sanctions the US enacted against Hezbollah at the end of the 1990s, it passed a specific law in 2014 named the Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Act (HIFPA), which is designed to make it difficult for the organization to find funding. Since then, Hezbollah has found it difficult to maintain bank accounts that are directly linked to it and has to maneuver carefully.

One of its methods is collecting donations from the various Shiite communities in the world. Another method, which was exposed too late, was selling goods to businesspeople and companies affiliated with Hezbollah. Last year, these people and companies were sold an Iranian ship that was anchored in the Port of Beirut, carrying a load of iron. The Iranian company that owned the ship was under sanctions, but the deal wasn't blocked, and it is likely that Hezbollah received some of the money.

In the past few years, the US Treasury Dept. has placed sanctions of people and companies linked to Hezbollah financing. Adham Tabaja, a prosperous Lebanese businessman who owns a few real estate and construction companies, was one. According to information passed on to the Americans, he used his companies' profits to help Hezbollah, and also assisted the organization by handling money transfers for it via his own firms. Because of that activity, Tabaja and his companies, as well as a few of his colleagues, were put on a US sanctions list.

Mohammad Bazzi is another Lebanese businessman who was added to the list. Bazzi, too, is suspected of using his companies (which were active in Europe, mainly Belgium) and Africa (mostly Gambia, a well-known Hezbollah base with a large Shiite population), to provide financial assistance to Hezbollah and indirectly fund some of the group's activities.

Pre-emptive strikes 

The intensive activity that is designed to stopper Hezbollah's money funnels has only seen partial success. The organization is deeply rooted in Lebanon and is heavily entwined in Lebanese banking, business, and trade. Thus far, the West – mainly the US – has refrained from striking a financial blow to Lebanon out of fear that it would undo the fragile political stability and plunge the country into chaos.

To a large extent, the situation is reminiscent of the 2006 Second Lebanon War. Then, under international pressure, Israel refrained from attacking national infrastructure in Lebanon to keep the country from collapsing. The result was a lack of internal pressure on Hezbollah as being responsible for the downfall of the nation, and Hezbollah came out of the war bruised, but still standing.

It appears that the financial war against Hezbollah won't succeed, either, if it is waged without involving the Lebanese nation.

"All of Hezbollah's finances are built on the Lebanese banking system, and people are afraid to touch it," says former intelligence official Uzi Shaya, who led the struggle to shut down the Lebanese Canadian Bank, which was one of Hezbollah's main sources of funding.

"An organization of that size can't live off of suitcases of money. It's not Hamas. It has a budget of nearly $1 billion, and that can't be handled by cash in suitcases. They have methods of financing. We need to locate them and shut them down," Shaya adds.

"The US recently offered a $10 million prize to anyone who can supply information about Hezbollah's financial system. That means they still aren't there, that they don't have enough information. And if they aren't there – we probably aren't either," he says.

Shaya thinks that the battle against money changers and cash transfers is "nice to have," but that the main target must be the organization's core finances.

"We need a national entity that will address the issue broadly, strategically," Shaya says.

"In the current situation, every organization takes care of its own matters – the Mossad and Military Intelligence are on Iran and Hezbollah, the Shin Bet [security agency] is on Hamas, and the Defense Ministry is doing its part, but there isn't a well-established system. … We have great partners in the US, we just need to work with them the right way."

Pressure like that – given the difficult economic situation in Iran, which directly affects Hezbollah – could definitely back the group into a corner. With at least another year left of the Trump administration, and possibly five, Nasrallah will need to make some tough decisions in order to keep the organization operational in its current form. That includes choosing between increasing its military might or the social activity that is the core of its existence.

Lebanon understands the meaning of that kind of economic war and is afraid of its possible ramifications. Visiting Washington last week, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri asked the US not to take action that would harm Lebanon or its institutions. Hariri made his request after the US Treasury, for the first time, placed two Hezbollah parliament members under personal sanctions. Hariri sought to prevent heavier steps that would attempt to detach Hezbollah from the Lebanese financial system.

Hariri wasn't working for the good of Hezbollah. He knows very well who assassinated his father, and who thwarted efforts to promote the most important aspect of Lebanon's economic future – its offshore natural gas resources. That was Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who is working hand in glove with Hezbollah to scoop up as many dividends as possible from the future bonanza.

Still, Hariri fears that major economic steps would hurt not only Hezbollah, but also (and mainly) his nation. On the other hand, experts believe that there is no alternative.

"If we want the Lebanese government to take action, we won't attack it with planes. The economic path is a great solution. It might come as a shock, but it will prevent the need for even bigger actions in the future. We just need to decide, focus our strength, and act," Shaya says.

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