Israel-Palestine teens charged for ISIS plot to attack synagogue

Two minors on either side of the Israel-Palestine border were slapped with criminal charges for “conspiring” with terrorist outfit ISIS, according to Israeli media reports on Friday. The reports also stated that the two had been involved in a planned terror attack on a synagogue in Lod, situated northwest of Jerusalem, as part of their allegiance to ISIS. 

According to the Jerusalem Post, the two were to attack the synagogue during the morning prayers, aided by ISIS operatives, with the Palestinian teenager stabbing the security guard with a poisoned knife, and the Israeli minor using that guard's gun to open fire on worshippers engaged in prayer.

The Israeli defendant had also made contact with ISIS through social media last summer, filming a video confirming his allegiance to the terrorist organisation and its leader, the indictment stated.

Reports say that ISIS' original plan had been for the Israeli boy to carry out the attack alone, because of his residence in Israel itself, for which he had selected the Lod synagogue. Later on, however, the plan was modified to introduce a fatal distraction, which the Palestinian boy chose to do after he was inducted into the ISIS plan by the Israeli.

However, the plan ultimately failed, after the defendants' main contact within the terrorist outfit was arrested in Jordan. While it remains unclear what the Palestinian did following the arrest, the Israeli boy was reported to have still kept in contact with other ISIS members, managing groups on social media and publicly expressing a desire to carry out terrorist acts. 

This comes just a month after the Israeli police and the Shin Bet, an Israeli military intelligence organisation, engaged in a joint operation to nab a 21-year-old Arab-Israeli from Taybeh, a village northeast of Jerusalem—as per Israeli media reports—after he too had contacted ISIS with the intention of being affiliated with them, and had also tipped them off by sending them photos of Israeli troops on their way to the West Bank city of Tulkarem, which had been a part of a large-scale counterterror operation there in recent months.

Middle East