Islamic State–linked activity on the rise in Israel and the West Bank

On November 14, the Shin Bet intelligence agency and the Israel Police arrested four residents of East Jerusalem’s Beit Safafa neighborhood on charges of having ties to the Islamic State and planning terrorist attacks against Jews. According to the agency, the four suspects purchased weapons to prepare for “the great war at the end of days” against Jews.

The arrest on these charges is not an isolated incident. FDD’s Long War Journal has noted a growing pattern of Arab residents of Israel and the West Bank plotting attacks against Jews, either on behalf of the Islamic State or after being inspired by the group’s ideology.

Two days before the arrest of the four Beit Safafa residents, authorities charged an 18-year-old Israeli Arab from the “triangle region of Arab towns east of Netanya” who had been taken into custody by law enforcement last month for planning to carry out an attack inspired by the Islamic State. The suspect was reported to have sought information on how to manufacture explosives and had communicated with Islamic State operatives abroad.

On September 30, the Shin Bet and the Israel Police announced that, “in recent weeks,”  they had arrested Issa Maadi, an Israeli Arab from Acre who planned to attack Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers with an improved explosive device at a bus stop on behalf of the Islamic State, Ynet reported.

The September Ynet report noted that since the start of the year, the Shin Bet had detained 42 Israeli Arabs who identified with the Islamic State.

In May, The Jerusalem Post also reported that Israel’s defense establishment warned of a sharp rise in involvement by Israeli Arabs in the Islamic State and armed Palestinian factions operating in the northern West Bank. The Shin Bet said it had uncovered and arrested more than 15 cells since the beginning of the year, most of them composed of Israeli Arabs who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. Officials said the arrests reflected a growing trend of terrorist activity driven by online radicalization.

A senior defense official said that most of the new Islamic State-linked groups consist of teenagers and young adults and represent one of two main channels of emerging activity identified in recent months, Ynet reported.

Jews have not been the only potential victims of suspects associated with the Islamic State. In April 2024, the Palestinian Authority dismantled an Islamic State cell in the northern West Bank that reportedly planned to target the Palestinian Authority’s headquarters in the territory. Palestinian forces discovered a car bomb and several mortar shells in the cell’s possession.

While Israeli authorities have successfully thwarted planned attacks by suspects who had been inspired by or pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, some plots have been successfully carried out.

One of the most notable acts in recent years was perpetrated by Ayman and Khaled Ighbariya in Hadera in northern Israel. On March 27, 2022, the jihadists gunned down two police officers and wounded 12 people before they were shot dead by law enforcement.

Taken together, the arrests in East Jerusalem, the Triangle, and Acre, along with other Islamic State–linked cases, point to a steady uptick in jihadist activity across Israel and the West Bank. While the Islamic State has explicitly called on followers to carry out attacks against Jews, some of the recent plots were inspired by the group rather than directed by it.

Most of the planned attacks have been disrupted by Israeli authorities, but security officials caution that online radicalization will continue to drive the threat.

Joe Truzman is an editor and senior research analyst at FDD’s Long War Journal focused primarily on Palestinian armed groups and non-state actors in the Middle East.