Israel’s Shin Bet security service and police announced on Monday that three Israeli-Arab residents of Um al-Fahm were arrested earlier in the year, after their plans to carry out a terrorist attack in the Old City of Jerusalem were uncovered.
The three suspects, thought to be supporters of ISIS, intended to carry out a shooting attack within the Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem’s Old City. Two Israeli police officers from the Druze community, Kamil Shanan and Hail Stawi, were killed on 14 July 2017 in a similar attack.
A statement from the Shin Bet confirmed that “the attack was thwarted thanks to precise intelligence information,” adding that “the Israeli Security Authority views Israelis that support Islamic State as a grave threat especially those who are in contact with the organisation and operate on its behalf inside the State of Israel.”
Muhammad Masoud Jabarin and Amad Lutfy Jabarin, were indicted in the Haifa District Court for belonging to a terrorist group, incitement to terrorism and destroying evidence. A third accomplice, who cannot be named due to being a minor at the time of the offence, was also charged.
The court heard that Jabarin and the minor began watching ISIS videos and reading their propaganda online in 2014, before swearing allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2017. The pair initially worked to spread ISIS’s ideology online through social media. They later considered joining ISIS in Syria, using a truck Jabarin had access to for work to carry out a ramming attack and stabbing Christian worshipers in Nazareth during the Christmas period, before deciding to carry out an attack on the Temple Mount.
In a related incident, a 40-year-old Belarusian immigrant to Israel was sentenced in Nazareth District Court to three years and two months in prison, after it was found that he planned to travel to Syria and join ISIS. A Shin Bet investigation revealed that Valentine Mazlevski had been in correspondence with ISIS operatives abroad in preparation for his move.
(via BICOM)
[Photo: BICOM]