Three of the four defendants, who remain on the run, including the alleged head of the Hezbollah cell, Lebanese Mohammed Qabalan, received life sentences. The fourth received a lesser prison term, lawyers said.

The rest of the group — including Egyptians, a Sudanese, West Bank Palestinians and Lebanese nationals — was handed sentences ranging from six months and 15 years.

The verdict cannot be appealed.

The 26 were convicted of plotting attacks against ships in the Suez Canal and on tourist sites and sending operatives and explosives to Gaza to aid fighters there. Most were detained between late 2008 and January 2009.

The defendants had said in a hand-written letter that they never planned attacks in Egypt but sought to help Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip who have close ties with Hezbollah.

The trial, which started in August 2009, is the first time Egypt has prosecuted alleged Hezbollah activists. In April of that year, Egyptian security officials said they had uncovered a Hezbollah cell plotting to destabilize the country.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah admitted after the arrests were publicized in April that he sent a senior commander, Mohammed Yusef Mansur, alias Sami Shihab, to Egypt to support Palestinian fighters in Gaza.

He said the cell comprised no more than 10 people and denied they planned attacks in Egypt.

But Judge Adel Abdel Salam Gomaa rejected the defense case, ruling that the defendants were not simply supporting Hamas but had indeed intended to carry out attacks on Egyptian soil.

“Is targeting ships in the Canal support for the Palestinian cause? Is preparing explosives and targeting tourist resorts support for the Palestinians?” the judge asked.

During the trial, prosecutors displayed explosives, including suicide belts that they said police had seized from the defendants.

Lawyers for Mansur acknowledged that he had proposed carrying out attacks against Israeli targets in Egypt in retaliation for the February 2008 assassination in Damascus of Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughniyeh but said the idea had been rejected by the movement’s leadership.

An Egyptian newspaper published a transcript of the prosecution’s interrogation of Shehab in which he said Qublan trained two men from Gaza on using explosives before helping them enter Israel.

After the verdict, defense lawyer Abdelmoneim Abdel Maqsud challenged the legitimacy of the court, a tribunal of exception set up under Egypt’s three-decade-old state of emergency. “This is a political trial that was taken to a court that offered no guarantee of justice,” he said.

The defendants greeted the verdict with cries of “Allahu Akbar,” but their enthusiasm was not shared by relatives, who had gathered outside the court building.

“Ibrahim, apple of your mother’s heart, you went for nothing,” screamed the mother of one of those jailed, Ibrahim Essam. “I swear he didn’t do anything.” Other relatives cried in shock.

The trial reignited a war of words between Egypt, Hezbollah and its backers.

At least three of the suspects were also charged with digging tunnels under Egypt’s border with Gaza with the intention of smuggling people and goods. Others are charged with providing safe houses for militants smuggled across the border.

This is also the first time Egypt has convicted people involved in the smuggling trade with Gaza.

Egypt, which has no formal diplomatic ties with Iran, accuses Tehran of backing the plot.

Iran and Hezbollah say Egypt contrived the case against the men.