According to the Al-Haqiqa report, Saudi Arabia's King Abdallah bin Abd al-Aziz had been persistently inviting Nasrallah to make the pilgrimage and meet with him, offering a special plane to carry him from Beirut. Mr. Nasrallah, however, turned down the offer for "serious security reasons" and, instead, sent his vice, Sheikh Na'em Qasem, and former Minister of Electricity Muhammad Fnaish MP, who met with King Abdallah on 31 December, 2006. Saudi Arabia had a very critical position towards Hizbullah during the July War in Lebanon last year.

The report's "trusted sources" said that intelligence, passed to Hizbullah by an Eastern European intelligence service, suggested that Israel was planning to stop the plane with jets, either taking it down and killing Nasrallah or forcing it to land in Israel and taking him hostage. The secret deal had allegedly been struck between the head of the Saudi National Security Council, Bandar bin Sultan, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at a meeting in Jordan a few weeks ago.

It is well known that Israel has done or tried to do this kind of thing many times before. The most famous incident, perhaps, is George Habash, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, whom they tried to arrest, along with other Fatah leaders, by means of stopping a Syrian plane that was supposed to be carrying them to Libya and forcing it to land in Isreal. However, they had all got off the plane, shortly before it took off, upon receiving intelligence about the Israeli intentions from the Stazi.