Israelis Accuse 10 Arabs of Spying for Iraq

Israeli police said today they had arrested 10 Israeli Arabs suspected of spying for Iraq in the Persian Gulf War.

The 10, arrested over the last two weeks, allegedly photographed strategic security installations and had instructions to send Israeli military documents to a Palestine Liberation Organization handler abroad on behalf of Iraq.

Police last week arrested Sari Nusseibeh, a leading Palestinian moderate, for allegedly passing information harmful to state security to Iraqi intelligence via the PLO.

Fellow Palestinian activists described the spy allegations as a pretext, saying his arrest was really aimed at quelling the 3-year-old uprising in the occupied territories.

The 10 Israeli Arabs will be arraigned and charged in an Israeli court within days, a police communique said. The charges include belonging to a hostile organization, contact with a foreign agent and espionage.

“The members of the organization are suspected of being recruited by an Arab Fatah activist, formerly a citizen of Israel, who lived in Iraq and Egypt and is linked with Iraqi intelligence,” the communique said.

“They were recruited to collect intelligence on Israel.”

Iraq has fired 29 Scud missiles at Israel, some of which have landed in the West Bank. Four people were killed in Israel and 273 wounded.

“Some of the members were told to pass information on where the Scud missiles fired from Iraq had fallen,” police said.