Palestinians charged with incitement over Facebook posts

Eight East Jerusalem residents were charged Monday with incitement to violence for online calls to attack Jews and security forces.

Police arrested the suspects, all Palestinians, on December 15, and said in a statement that several of them were affiliated with Hamas and Fatah.

The eight were arrested for circulating images and videos on Facebook praising recent attacks against Israeli civilians and security forces. Some of the images showed them holding pistols and M-16 rifles.

The images garnered thousands of “likes” and supportive comments, police said.

Police said they confiscated personal computers, mobile phones, storage devices and an improvised grenade from the suspects’ homes.

The operation came after an intensive joint investigation by the Jerusalem Police central investigative unit, the Shin Bet security service, and the Attorney General’s Office.

Senior Border Police official Aviad Ketafi recently told The Times of Israel that security forces had been working “very hard” to monitor social media profiles and online forums in hopes of identifying potential attackers following a wave of attacks last month.

The Shin Bet recently posted on its website a job ad for “data mining” – a post that requires fluent Arabic and, preferably, a background in web intelligence.

Mitch Ginsberg contributed to this report.