Israel questioned Adam stabber 2 years ago over Facebook posts, family says
Shin Bet security service declines to confirm if Mohammed Yousef, terrorist who killed Yotam Ovadia last week, was summoned to a meeting at its offices
Adam Rasgon is a former Palestinian affairs reporter at The Times of Israel
A teenage Palestinian terrorist who carried out a fatal stabbing attack in a West Bank settlement last Thursday was summoned by an Israeli intelligence service two years ago over Facebook posts, family members said this week.
Seventeen-year-old Mohammed Yousef of Kobar stabbed three Israelis in Adam, killing Yotam Ovadia, 31, and wounding the other two before he was shot dead.
“He and his father were summoned to a meeting with the Israeli intelligence services after he made a few posts on Facebook about the situation here,” Khalid Yousef, an uncle of Muhammed, said in an interview in Kobar on Sunday.
Yahya Yousef, Muhammed’s brother, confirmed Khalid’s comment.
Khalid and Yahya did not say which intelligence service summoned Muhammed.
A spokesman for Israel’s Shin Bet security service, the most likely possibility, declined to confirm if Yousef had been summoned to its offices two years ago or at any other time.
The Shin Bet monitors Palestinians’ Facebook posts for incitement and sometimes calls them in for meetings to discuss them.
A Palestinian Authority intelligence official did not respond to requests for comment.
According to Khalid, Mohammed and his father went to the meeting with the Israeli intelligence service, after which Mohammed stopped making Facebook posts about what he described as “the situation” in the West Bank.
He said he could not remember the specific content of Mohammed’s Facebook posts two years ago, but noted that it generally dealt with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
Mohammed’s Facebook page is no longer searchable.
But a post he made just before carrying out the stabbing last week called on Palestinians to revolt and take up arms against Israel.
“O he who owns a gun and bullets, remember that there is an enemy to shoot…The time of the great revolution has come. Revolt,” he wrote.
Both Khalid and Yahya said that what Mohammed wrote late Thursday was the first conflict-oriented Facebook post he had made since meeting with the Israeli intelligence service.