Former IDF soldier charged with training to fight abroad with Islamic State

Indictment charges that Khamis Sawaed, from the Bedouin village of Hussniyya, became interested in ISIS in 2023 and was planning to travel to Syria or Africa to join group

By Noam Lehmann and ToI Staff 2 September 2026, 5:12 pm

Edit

Illustrative: Iraqi Army soldiers celebrate as they hold a flag of the Islamic State group they captured during a military operation to regain control of a village outside Mosul, Iraq, November 29, 2016. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban, file)

A former IDF soldier was charged on Wednesday with training to fight abroad with the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group, the Israel Police and Shin Bet security agency said.

The Haifa District Attorney’s Office filed the indictment against Khamis Sawaed, a resident of the northern Bedouin village of Hussniyya, at the Haifa Magistrate’s Court along with a request to keep him in custody until the end of the legal proceedings, the security agencies said in a joint statement.

Sawaed, who is in his 30s, was arrested for interrogation “in recent weeks,” according to the statement.

Over the course of his interrogation, investigators found that starting in 2023, Sawaed had watched how-to videos on warfare and missile and drone production out of “identification with the Islamic State terror group,” the statement said.

According to the indictment filed against Sawaed and cited in Hebrew-language media, Sawaed served in the IDF from 2017 to 2019, but in 2023 became interested in ISIS. He then began watching the training videos in 2024, after deciding he would eventually go abroad, either to Syria or somewhere in Africa, to fight alongside the group.

Among the videos he watched was footage of beheadings carried out by ISIS in order to “toughen himself,” Channel 12 reported.

A vehicle allegedly belonging to the Islamic State group in West Africa is seen in Baga on August 2, 2019 (AUDU MARTE / AFP)

Dozens of Arab citizens have been arrested in recent years on suspicion of plotting attacks on behalf of Islamic State, including five residents of Taybe who allegedly plotted to set off a car bomb at Tel Aviv’s Azrieli mall in 2024.

Last week, the Shin Bet and police announced the indictment of two teenagers from the Galilee who were accused of researching explosives to attack Israeli security forces on the Temple Mount.

Islamic State, which at one point ruled over large swaths of Iraq and Syria, in 2022 called on its supporters in Israel to carry out attacks.

The demand came after Israel moved to crack down on ISIS after six Israelis were killed in a pair of terror attacks in Beersheba and Hadera by Arab Israeli supporters of the jihadist group.