The terrorists who carried out a deadly attack in the city of Hadera on Sunday night that left two Israelis dead and several others wounded belonged to Islamic State, Homeland Security Minister Omer Barlev said.
“It’s a very serious attack. We are talking about terrorists belonging to the Islamic State,” Barlev told Army Radio after midnight Sunday.
“We are witnessing an alarming awakening that could happen in any country. The police are deployed in all areas,” he said.
Barlev did not detail the two shooters’ affiliation with ISIS, nor did they name them.
Islamic State later claimed responsibility in a statement released by propaganda site Amaq.
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“Two members of the Jewish (state) police were killed and others injured in an immersive commando attack,” ISIS said in a rare claim for an attack inside Israel.
According to the intelligence group SITE, this is the first time since 2017 that IS has officially claimed an attack in Israel.
Hebrew media largely identified the two terrorists as Ayman and Ibrahim Ighbariah, cousins who police said were residents of the central Arab city of Umm al-Fahm. Israel Police said the two arrived at the scene with 1,100 bullets along with at least three handguns and six knives.
The two terrorists opened fire on police along Samuel Herbert Street in Hadera on Sunday evening, Israel Police said. Two people were killed and several others injured, according to police and medics, before officers gunned down both Ighbariahs.
Ibrahim, 31, was arrested by Turkish police in 2016 after trying to join the jihadist group Islamic State in Syria. He was later arrested by Israeli security forces and served a year and a half in prison for membership of a terrorist group.
Ibrahim Hassan Yussef Ighbariah was pictured outside a district court in Haifa on June 29, 2016 as he stands trial for attempting to join the Islamic State in Syria. (Screenshot: Twitter)
The reported affiliation with the Islamic State links to another recent terrorist attack by an Arab Israeli against Israeli civilians. Last Tuesday, Arab-Israeli Mohammad Ghaleb Abu al-Qi’an, a terror convict from the Bedouin town of Hura in the Negev, killed four Israeli civilians in Beersheba in the worst attack on Israeli civilians in six years. Abu al-Qi’an, who was also killed in the attack, had served four years in prison for plotting to join the fundamentalist terrorist group “Islamic State” in Syria. He was released in 2019.
Ayman Ighbariah, the second Hadera gunman, was arrested by the Shin Bet in 2017 for illegal gun possession, according to Haaretz daily.
Israeli security forces are to investigate whether the two Hadera terrorists knew Abu al-Qi’an, the man who stabbed Beersheba.
المثقفين المشتبكين…مقبلين غير مدبرين
منفذا عملية الخضيرة من أم الفحم: أبناء العمومة الشهيدين أيمن أحمد وابراهيم حسن إغبارية#الخضيرة pic.twitter.com/mvNF9YBmDt— حلا (@halakhalayleh) March 27, 2022
A video circulating on social media is said to show the two Ighbariahs embracing in front of an Islamic State flag before Sunday’s attack. The identities of the people in the video could not be independently verified.
Police officers entered the town of Umm al-Fahm shortly after the shooting to search for suspects.
For more details, Umm al-Fahm Mayor Samir Mahameed told the Times of Israel that precise information on the suspects’ identities and backgrounds is still not available. The community of Umm al-Fahm condemned their actions.
The attack took place during a historic meeting of the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Egypt along with the US and Israeli foreign ministers – at the Negev Summit in Sde Boker. All summit participants condemned the attack.
The ISIS proto-state – which once administered millions of people in parts of Syria and Iraq – was declared defeated on March 23, 2019.
But IS operatives continue to carry out attacks around the world.
Earlier this month, the IS group confirmed the death of its leader Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi and named Abu Hasan al-Hashemi al-Qurashi as his successor.
The announcement came more than a month after the IS chief was killed in a US raid that saw commandos fly helicopters into rival jihadist-controlled territory in north-west Syria.
Terrorist groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad hailed the shootings as a “natural response” to the “summit of humiliation.”
Tensions between Israel and the Palestinians have risen in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in recent weeks. Ten Palestinians were killed in violent clashes with Israeli troops: some died in gun battles with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, others in attempted attacks.
Last weekend, two officers were injured in a suspected knife attack in the Ras al-Amud neighborhood of east Jerusalem, and an Israeli man was stabbed and slightly injured while jogging on Jerusalem’s Hebron Road.
Earlier this month there were multiple attacks in the Old City of Jerusalem and a nearby West Bank city.
AFP contributed to this report
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