The Shin Bet, Israel Police and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) arrested in September several residents of the Alawite village of Ghajar, on the Israeli-Lebanon border, for assisting the Lebanese terror group in the terror plot by using drug smuggling routes to transfer the explosives.

After the explosives were discovered hidden near the Lebanon border, an investigation revealed that village residents, led by Diab Sa’ad Jamil Kahamuz, were in contact with Hezbollah and had assisted the group in smuggling and gathering intelligence in Israel. Kahamuz and his brothers plotted to target a bus stop at a junction frequently used by Israeli soldiers to travel to their bases in the planned Haifa attack.

Earlier this year, Kahamuz had communicated with his father, Sa’ad Kahamuz, a drug trafficker from Ghajar, who fled to Lebanon in October 2006 and is known for providing assistance to Hezbollah, according to Shin Bet.

Drug smuggling routes from Lebanon are increasingly being used to pass weapons into Israel, the Shin Bet said.