Police set to charge 14-year-old from Jaffa who allegedly tried to aid Hamas, ISIS

Police are preparing to indict an Arab Israeli 14-year-old from Jaffa suspected of trying to aid ISIS and Hamas, law enforcement announces, after submitting a prosecutor’s declaration against the youth.

The teenager allegedly reached out to contacts in both terror groups with footage and photos of buildings that are “linked to security forces” in Israel. He also sought to manufacture explosives in order to aid terrorist elements, police claim, but it is unclear whether he succeeded in his attempts to create a functioning bomb.

According to his lawyer, who spoke to The Times of Israel earlier this week, the youth has autism and was detained while visiting his mother’s family in Ramallah. He is being held in the Russian Compound detention facility in Jerusalem, where he has been subject to beatings by guards and other inmates, his attorney further claimed.

The teenager was arrested in Ramallah on October 17 after he allegedly “carried out several tasks for a hostile foreign entity,” police say. His detention has been extended several times by the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court.

Detectives in the Tel Aviv District police’s investigations and intelligence unit have been conducting a covert investigation into the youth over the past couple of weeks, which was subject to a gag order until it was lifted today.