Coalition of terror

Throughout the entire Arab world, different Muslim movements are at each other’s throats. In Israel, even the Shiite-backed Hamas and the ultra-Sunni Islamic State put aside their differences to wage war against the Jews.

By  Nadav Shragai, ISRAEL HAYOM

A mural on a wall in Umm al-Fahm memoralizes the terrorists behind the July 2017 Temple Mount shooting that killed two Border Police officers

The Palestine issue was never a central aspect of the Islamic State’s worldview. Unlike many Arab and Islamist movements and organizations, which made war on Israel and the liberation of Palestine and Jerusalem their top priority, for ISIS – even when it controlled territory and was much more dominant than it is now – these were seen as far-off goals.

Nevertheless, ISIS and a small group of its supporters in Israel were not ignoring the Palestine issue. The archives of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) contain crude, hard-to-watch videos put online in recent years. One, in Hebrew, encourages viewers to “kill and slaughter Jews” in “lone wolf” attacks, using every method – stabbings, car rammings, car bombs, rock throwing, roadside bombs, poisoning, and more.

The Islamic State campaign that is targeted at Arab Israelis also includes calls on Muslims in Beit al-Maqdis (Jerusalem) to take part in jihad against Jews and fight for Islam and not for the empty values of secularism and nationalism. Alongside a harsh attack on the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement (“an agent of the Jews”) and Hamas (“does the bidding of the Iranian Shiites”), the ISIS spokesmen say in the video that “the soldiers of the Islamic caliphate will reach Jerusalem and liberate Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

Indeed, the two points on which Hamas, the outlawed Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, and ISIS converge are the caliphate and Al-Aqsa. These two issues connect the three radical movements, and this appears to be particularly clear in the Arab Israeli city Umm al-Fahm in northern Israel.

The broadest common ground is the idea of establishing a global Islamic caliphate. Recent days have demonstrated yet again that the already blurry line between supporters of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement and the cluster of ISIS supporters among Arab Israelis is actually what connects them. It’s no coincidence that one of the two terrorists responsible for the attack in Hadera, Ayman Ighbariah, was photographed with head of the Northern Branch, Sheikh Raed Salah.

Salah envisions Jerusalem as the capital of the Muslim caliphate. The blood libel “Al-Aqsa is in danger,” with which Salah is closely linked, is just one rung on the ladder toward the caliphate. ISIS and its supporters, on the other hand, never defined the borders of any future worldwide caliphate or specified its capital. After their losses on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq, Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa became a sort of new horizon, or at least a potential one.

A common link

The Northern Branch sees Al-Aqsa as a place that must be redeemed from “Jewish desecration” and “liberated from its captors.” For the ISIS supporters among Arab Israelis, Al-Aqsa is everything the Northern Branch says it is, and more: it is a tool used to spread and promote the idea of the Islamic state and the war on the new heretics – Jews and Christians.

Nashat Melhem, who carried out the terrorist shooting on Dizengoff St. in January 2016 that killed three people, was known to be a supporter of both ISIS and Hamas. Melhem was a resident of Arara who would often visit Umm al-Fahm.

Two members of a large Hamas cell in east Jerusalem that the Shin Bet security agency exposed a few years ago were also supporters of ISIS: Ziad Amran, from the Old City of Jerusalem, and his friend Fadi Abu Qaian, from the Negev town of Hura, were both operatives in Salafii organizations and avowed supporters of ISIS.

Abu Qaian was recruited to the cell by Hamas member Amad Azzam. When Assam told his handlers in the Gaza Strip that he had recruited Abu Qaian, he was told that they had no interest in involving ISIS in their activity, and was instructed to cut ties with Abu Qaian.

In Umm al-Fahm and nearby Arab population centers in northern Israel there were generally no handlers from Gaza to make that distinction: Baha Masarwa and Ahmed Ahmed, two youths from Nazareth who would drive to Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque, where they were exposed to Hamas’ ideology, plotted to shoot police officers near the Lion’s Gate, but in the name of ISIS. The Shin Bet stopped the attack before it was executed.

When frustration and nationalism intersect

Brig. Gen. (res.) Nitzan Nuriel, who served for six years as head of the National Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau, explains that what Hamas, ISIS, and the Northern Branch have in common is their affiliation with the extremist element of Islam.

“There is no board of directors meeting that makes a decision about cooperation. The common ground is religious, and the atmosphere of the month of Ramadan and various and sundry personal motives for the terrorists. The cooperation isn’t the result of policy, but of familiarity, friendships, temporary shared needs, [such as] a need for money or weapons. All these are practical.

“If we look for a Quran verse that they all understand and interpret exactly the same, we probably won’t find it. The Islamist religious motif, with added nationalism, frustration, and other elements, is what creates these combinations. Above all, when you’re an Islamic extremist, you don’t accept anyone – not even moderate Islam. The lack of religious tolerance is the element that motivates everything,” Nuriel explains.

Nuriel points out that Hamas, a Sunni Muslim group, is currently dependent on the Shiites. “All over the Arab world, they’re killing each other, but here, they’re cooperating. The basis for that cooperation is also the basis for cooperation within the radical wing of Islam, which says that Israel is a big enough enemy to overcome divisions. ‘We’ll fight in future, but on this issue, we’ll work together.'”

The target: Independence Day

In July 2017, three members of the Northern Branch from Umm al-Fahm carried out a lethal terrorist shooting at the Temple Mount compound, murdering two Border Police officers: Haiel Sitawe and Kamil Shnaan. One of the terrorists, who was shot by other police, collapsed in the middle of the Temple Mount plaza. When police sappers approached him, he tried to pull out a knife, shouted “I’m from Raed Salah’s group!” and was shot and killed.

The five months that followed the Temple Mount attack saw two other attempted terrorist attacks on the Temple Mount – this time, by supporters of ISIS from Umm al-Fahm. Both plots involved young people from the Jabarin clan, to which the Northern Branch supporters who killed the border policemen also belonged.

The first plot involved Sayeed Bin Jasoub Jabarin and an unnamed minor. Both of them, like Ibrahim Ighbariah – one of the two terrorists in the Hadera attack – tried to leave for Syria and fight with ISIS there. They also plotted a shooting at one of the entrances to the Temple Mount, which was thwarted. In November 2017, ISIS supporters from Umm al-Fahm cooked up another terrorist plot. This time, two brothers from the Jabarin clan and another minor were behind it.

ISIS incitement videos of the “slaughter the Jews” type played a key role in these events. The videos promised to “liberate” Al-Aqsa under the ISIS flag. The framework of the second plot was reminiscent of lethal attacks from the time of chaos in Iraq, which left dozens dead. Three targets were selected for attacks: worshippers at a Tel Aviv synagogue; Christians during Christmas, and Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Expressions of support for ISIS in Umm al-Fahm were not restricted to the Temple Mount question. The son of a local family joined ISIS in Syria and was killed there. Two other young men from the city who flew to Turkey to join ISIS were also arrested. One was Ibrahim Ighbariah of the Hadera attack, who was 23 at the time. The Turks arrested him on his way to Syria and deported him to Israel. When questioned, it turned out that he had tried to delete his history of browsing ISIS-related sites from his computer’s hard drive. He had left his family a letter in which he informed them of his intention to join the jihad.

The blurred lines between Hamas and ISIS can also be seen in the story of Ahmed Jabis and Basal Abidat, who a few years ago marked Israel’s 72nd Independence Day as a possible date on which to carry out a mass-casualty attack at Sultan’s Pool in Jerusalem. The two, who were raised in a strongly pro-Hamas environment in the village of Jabal Mukhabar in east Jerusalem, were considering carrying out a major attack in the name of ISIS, and even contacted the organization. They were arrested before they could proceed with their plot.

Fadi al-Qanbar, also from Jabal Mukhaber, was another terrorist influenced by Salafist ideology, but the Shin Bet had less success catching up with him. In January 2017 he used his truck to run down and kill four IDF soldiers at the Armon Hanatziv promenade in the capital before he was shot and killed. He was apparently inspired by two much more deadly car rammings carried out by ISIS supporters, one in Nice and one in Berlin.

Weapons in dangerous hands

After four lethal terrorist attacks in Beersheba, Hadera, Bnei Brak, and Tel Aviv, security forces will now need to cope with the risk of copycat attacks; the increasingly fuzzy differences between attackers from Hamas, the Northern Branch, and ISIS (which are more significant in Umm al-Fahm); and of course, with the nearly unlimited stock of weapons in the Arab sector that is available to terrorists from all movements.

The defense and security establishment was recently reminded that the Northern Branch members who carried out the Temple Mount attack in 2017 had no trouble securing guns, and even trained outside Umm al-Fahm without anyone hindering them. For years, residents of the northern city have been used to hearing various explosions – sometimes celebratory rounds fired off at weddings, and sometimes shots fired by criminals checking their weapons. The cousins behind the terrorist shooting in Hadera had access to plenty of weapons and large stocks of bullets, and it’s not impossible that they, too, trained near their place of residence without anyone bothering them.

For years, the Shin Bet has been warning that criminal shootings in the Arab sector could turn into ethno-religious shootings. Now it’s happening. Maybe now, after the Hadera attack, the penny will drop and security officials will launch much more extensive operations to confiscate weapons. Maybe now courts will hand out more severe punishments for crimes of this type.

After the events of May 2021, when violence and rioting erupted in Israel mixed cities, a senior security official warned the political leadership that the use of illegal guns by Arab rioters could be much more widespread than they thought. Almost a year has passed, and it seems as if this is the last chance to take the initiative to reduce the numbers of illegal guns and ammunition the Arab sector is keeping in their homes and other hiding places.

Meanwhile, Turkey hasn’t shut down Hamas’ headquarters in Istanbul, which has been steering terrorist attacks against Israel in recent years. In his recent meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President Isaac Herzog did not receive any promise that Erdogan intended to do any such thing. Moreover, contacts with the Turks have revealed that they refuse to shut down Hamas’ offices in their country and deport its operatives, as Israel is demanding. This wasn’t stated explicitly, but Turkey under Erdogan, the great patron of the Muslim Brotherhood, will not “betray” Hamas just because it happens to need Israel at the moment.

The only step Turkey has taken thus far is to hand a list of Hamas operatives to Salah al-Arouri, deputy leader of Hamas abroad who is also in charge of Hamas’ military branch in Judea and Samaria, and demand that he make sure they stop taking action against Israel. The Turks, at least for now, aren’t enforcing that demand, are not arresting Hamas members or placing them under any restrictions, and won’t even consider closing their headquarters in Istanbul.

A few weeks ago, an indictment was filed in the Jerusalem District Court against Khaled Sabah and two of his sons from Sur Baher in east Jerusalem. The document reveals some of what has been going on behind the scenes of Hamas in Turkey in the past few months, as well as preparations for the summit between Erdogan and Herzog.

While the Foreign Ministry was working to make Herzog’s visit to Turkey a success, Sabah and his family flew there to be put in charge of Hamas in Jerusalem and coordinating Hamas’ activity with the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel. The indictment mentions shooting instructions, preparations for future military actions, and organizing riots at the Temple Mount during Ramadan, as well as financial matters. In Turkey, Sabah opened a bank account into which Hamas deposited money for his use. These funds covered Sabah’s outlay of hundreds of thousands of shekels of his own money in Israel to pay Hamas terrorists and their families.

The charity group Lajnat Zakat al-Quds was part of the financial activity Sabah headed. The group transferred funds to Hamas operatives and families of shahids (martyrs). According to the indictment, from 2007-2020 Sabah and one of his sons carried out “some 27 million shekels [$8.4 million] worth of acquisitions for terrorist purposes.” The unusual address of the group is intriguing: it is located at the Gate of Mercy on the Temple Mount.