Police arrest 12 Arabs in Northern Israel connected to Islamic terrorism

The police raided several Arab towns in northern Israel on Monday night and arrested 12 suspects connected to Islamic terrorism, following Sunday night’s terror attack in Hadera in which two Islamic terrorists shot at Israelis, killing two Border Police troops and wounding some 10 others.

The Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack.

The two terrorists, Ibrahim and Ayman Agbaria, were cousins from Umm al-Fahm, the area in which the police conducted the raids on Monday night. Ibrahim was charged in 2016 with attempting to join ISIS. Both were killed by a Special Forces unit that happened to be nearby at the time of the attack. Both terrorists had Israeli citizenship.

Further arrests in the area are expected in the coming days.

Earlier on Monday, the police stated that it had arrested an ISIS-affiliated activist from the Bedouin town of Tel Sheva in the south.

The 23-year-old was arrested on Friday night on suspicion of supporting and identifying with a terrorist organization and inciting terrorism.

Since the beginning of March, Muslim terrorists have carried out nine terrorist attacks across the country, in which Israelis were 25 injured, and six were killed.

Security tensions in Israel are high, after a series of terror attacks in the Jerusalem area and the murder of four Israelis in Be’er Sheva by an Islamist terrorist, and ahead of the Muslim month of Ramadan, which usually spells an uptick in Muslim violence and acts of terrorism in Israel.

The country’s security establishment is bracing for violence, especially as Ramadan coincides with Passover, and following the first anniversary of Operation Guardian of the Walls in May 2021, which was launched by the IDF following a Hamas rocket attack on Jerusalem that began at the height of the Month of Ramadan.