Shin Bet details alleged plot to form ‘terror battalion’ in southern Israel

The Shin Bet internal security service, in a Thursday report, detailed an alleged plot by citizens of the Bedouin town of Segev Shalom to form a “military battalion in the town” in the style of West Bank “terrorist battalions.”

The agency said that since the start of this year it has arrested 72 residents of the south and indicted about 50 of them over “activity that endangers the security of the state,” including “promoting terrorist action” and “smuggling arms at the border.”

All but five of the people arrested are Israeli citizens, according to the Shin Bet.

Among the people who were indicted are six Israeli citizens from Segev Shalom who were charged earlier this year in the Beersheba District Court with “serious terrorist crimes” in two separate cases, the Shin Bet said.

The first case involved the attempt to form a terror cell, and the second involved a plan to attack Beersheba’s popular Forum nightclub “out of identification with various terrorist organizations, including Islamic State and Hamas,” the agency said.

The two cases were the only examples of indictments given in the Shin Bet statement. Both were made public by the Shin Bet earlier this year, and it was unclear what prompted the agency to issue Thursday’s statement.

An unnamed senior Shin Bet official cited in the statement said those and other cases “demonstrate the security risk from the formation of cells of Israeli citizens, some of which are quasi-military, that seek to promote terrorist attacks on Israeli territory.”

In the Segev Shalom battalion case, the Shin Bet said five young men were indicted:

• A “cell leader,” who had worked to replicate the West Bank battalion model in Segev Shalom and incited to terrorism on social media;
• A person who agreed in principle to carry out the commander’s plans for a shooting attack at the Segev Shalom police station and a stabbing and shooting attack at the Beersheba Central Bus Station;
• An “engineer,” who watched instructional material on explosives and was “responsible for preparing explosives against Israeli security forces”;
• A person who “expressed agreement” to take part in the proposed Segev Shalom police station attack;
• And another person who also agreed to join the Segev Shalom cell, had planned for the past two years to carry out a stabbing in the name of Islamic State, and “himself planned to carry out an independent bombing attack when released from prison.”

When the police and the Shin Bet first made the case public in July, they reported just four people who were arrested and indicted, including the commander and the engineer.

The statement at the time also referred to the Segev Shalom group as a cell, not a battalion, and did not mention any “Palestinian affinity,” as this statement did.

It said the commander had decided to form a terrorist framework to fight Israeli security forces following the 2021 riots in mixed Jewish-Arab cities in Israel during a round of conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

The suspect in the Forum case, Abdullah Gergawi, was also “in contact with Islamic State activists and expressed intent to go to Islamic State combat zones abroad,” the Shin Bet said.

When police and the Shin Bet first made the plot public in August, they said the 20-year-old suspect was arrested in July for allegedly planning to car-bomb the nightclub, and had also been in contact with “a person who presented himself as a Palestinian terror operative.”

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

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