●Seventeen Israeli spy networks dismantled: the largest operation since 2009

On 31 January 2022 the interior minister Bassam Mawlawi informed the cabinet that the Information Branch of the Internal Security Forces had dismantled 17 spy networks working for Israel locally and regionally, after an operation that had begun four weeks earlier in which 21 Lebanese, Palestinians and Syrians were arrested and referred to the military judiciary. "Al-Akhbar" said the networks were monitoring the positions of Hezbollah and the Palestinian factions, Hamas among them, and had penetrated some non-governmental organisations; the largest security operation of its kind since 2009.