Israeli Islamic State member: ‘We love to drink blood’

An Arab-Israeli Islamic State fighter nicknamed “the Palestinian slayer” declared that the jihadist group “love[s] to drink blood” in a video uploaded recently that has been making the rounds on the internet.

“I swear we are a people who love death for the sake of Allah just as you love to live. I swear we are a people who love drinking blood. We came to slaughter you,” the man says in a video posted by the al-Arabiya news agency.

“We love dying for Allah as much as you love life.”

The man, 26-year-old Rabiya Shahade, is believed to hail from the Arab-Israeli city of Nazareth. According to an al-Arabiya correspondent, he was a mechanical engineering student at the Nazareth Illit-Yezreel Technological College in the country’s Northern District.

A high school friend of Shahade said earlier this week that he was “one of the best students in class and was at the top in almost every subject.” Shahade was “an all around good guy… He never hurt anyone and even had Jewish friends with whom he was in regular contact,” the friend added.

Shahade allegedly quit his studies in order to cross over to Turkey and join the more moderate Free Syrian Army. But he later joined the Islamic State.

He reportedly has a wife and a son; the two are said to have been “shocked” by his new allegiances.

According to Israeli intelligence services, there are at least 10 Israeli-Arabs who are known to have joined the Islamic State.