In the ITIC’s assessment, Fawzi Ayoub was sent to Israel to carry out a showcase terrorist attack, or possibly to gather intelligence about important targets within Israel to prepare a terrorist foundation for Hezbollah operatives. During interrogation he admitted that one of his missions was to try to secure the release Hezbollah operatives imprisoned in Israel, possibly by abducting Israelis.
From Jerusalem he went to Hebron where he contacted local Palestinian terrorist operatives. He was detained and held by the Palestinian security services in Hebron. On June 25, 2002, during an IDF action in Hebron, he was detained and interrogated by the Israeli security forces. After his interrogation the IDF chief of staff signed an order for his imprisonment. In 2004 he was released by Israel and returned to Lebanon as part of the Tannenbaum exchange deal.
On August 5, 2009, a Michigan district court filed a grand jury indictment against him in absentia. He was accused of using and of attempting to use a counterfeit American passport to enter Israel to carry out a terrorist attack for Hezbollah. With the indictment he was put on the FBI’s most wanted terrorists list. On May 30, 2014, Hezbollah held a formal funeral for him in the village of Ain Qana in south Lebanon. It was attended by Hezbollah operatives and activists, clerics and Lebanese public figures. Mourners waved Hezbollah flags and pictures of senior Hezbollah terrorist operatives killed in Syria, and chanted slogans such as “At your orders, oh Nasrallah,” and “Zeynab will not be captured again.”
Hezbollah justifies its involvement in the fighting in Syria by calling it a battle against the jihadist terrorism of Al-Qaeda and its affiliated organizations, which, according to Hezbollah, threaten Lebanon’s security. The death of Fawzi Ayoub shows Hezbollah’s readiness to deploy its most capable manpower in the battle at Aleppo and other key locations. That included sending Ayoub, an operative with extensive experience in the organization’s overseas terrorist activities, since in any case he had been burned and could no longer carry out clandestine missions outside of Lebanon.
