Two Israelis indicted over ties to Islamic State
Defendants accused of conspiring to carry out terror attack inside Israel, other offenses
Two Israeli men from central Israel were indicted Wednesday on allegations that they tried to contact the Islamic State terror group and planned terror attacks in Israel.
The names of the two men were not cleared for publication.
One suspect, 24, was charged with contacting a foreign agent and multiple offenses of conspiring to commit a crime.
The second suspect, a 48-year-old man who has been living abroad, was charged with belonging to an illegal organization, leaving Israel illegally and giving information to a foreign agent.
According to the indictment, served by the Central District Prosecutor’s Office, the defendant living abroad presented himself in 2015 on Facebook as an activist for Islamic State and published posts showing ideological identification with the terror group.
He praised past terror attacks in Israel, including the January 1 attack on Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Street carried out by Nashat Milhem.
The defendant and a relative of his started communicating via Facebook, and the relative said he would leave for Syria to join IS. The defendant kept in touch with his relative even as he knew he had since trained and taken part in active combat on behalf of Islamic State.
The defendant said his relative, nicknamed Maqdassi, should carry out a terror attack outside Israel. Maqdassi said the attack should be against Western foreigners and the defendant offered several potential targets.
In late 2015, Maqdassi contacted the second defendant, and told him to join him in Syria in fighting in IS ranks. The defendant was initially reluctant but over time became convinced. He conspired with Maqdassi to carry out a terror attack inside Israel and then to leave for Syria.
Maqdassi allegedly told the younger defendant that he would connect him with Islamic State operatives in the West Bank and that these people would give him the equipment he needed to carry out the attack – a machine gun, explosive devices and dynamite. Maqdassi told the second defendant that once he would reach Turkey, a smuggler would meet him and take him inside Syria.
The younger man was arrested in February in Qalqilya. The older defendant was arrested three days before that by local police in the country where he was residing, then deported to Israel where he was arrested upon his arrival at Ben-Gurion International Airport.
The country in which the older defendant was arrested was not detailed.