Israeli officials announced today that three Surian agents and a number of Israeli Arabs had been arrested in an espionage roundup. They will go on trial in Haifa district court next week.
The Syrian agents, one of them known to be active for many years in the Syrian intelligence service, were caught two weeks ago in the upper Galilee several hours after they crossed the Lebanese border. They were found hiding in an orange grove by border police. They were heavily armed, the police said, listing their equipment as including submachine-guns, pistols, hand grenades and knives.
The number of Israeli Arabs arrested was not disclosed. Police said they were residents in western Galilee villages and that they had been in contact with the Syrian agents. One of the arrested spies is a native of Palestine and speaks fluent Hebrew, police said. He had been in Israeli prisons several times on minor charges and was once exiled from his village to a remote place but escaped to Syria where he Joined the intelligence service, police stated.
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