Israel Changes Policy Towards ISIS, Hires 15,000 Personnel to Confront Threats

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Reuters
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Reuters
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Israel Changes Policy Towards ISIS, Hires 15,000 Personnel to Confront Threats

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Reuters
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Reuters

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett issued instructions to change the policy on dealing with ISIS terrorists to impose severe penalties on their activities and monitor their behavior and their accounts on social networks.

Bennett stepping up anti-ISIS measures follows two people being killed in a shooting attack in Hadera, the second attack linked to the militant group in Israel within a week.

Moreover, Tel Aviv issued a series of security decisions that included recruiting 15,000 individuals to its police and border guards’ apparatuses. The increase in personnel is meant to deter additional threats of terror attacks during Islam’s holy month of fasting, Ramadan.

“A second attack by ISIS supporters inside Israel requires the security forces to adapt quickly to the new threat,” said Bennett, adding that extremist elements of the Arab community in Israel are being directed by an extremist Islamic ideology to carry out terrorist operations that take human lives.

One of the two attackers who carried out the shooting Sunday had served a year and a half in an Israeli prison following a conviction for attempting to enter Syria to become an ISIS fighter.

Ibrahim Agbarieh, 29, from the Israeli town of Umm al-Fahm was arrested by Turkish police ahead of boarding a bus headed for the Syrian border. Apparently, information provided to Turkey by Israeli authorities led to the arrest.

The second assailant, Ayman Agbarieh, also from Umm al-Fahm, identified with ISIS. He was arrested by the Shin Bet security service in 2017 on suspicion of weapons violations but was released three weeks later without charges.

Two people were killed in the shooting, both of them 19-year-old members of the Border Police.

“My heart breaks for the death of Border Police members Shirel Abukarat and Yazan Falah, who died shielding civilians with their bodies from vile murderers,” a statement from Bennett said.

“I wish a speedy recovery to the wounded and send my deep condolences to the family.”

Five other people – a Border Police member and four civilians – are hospitalized at Hadera's Hillel Yaffeh Medical Center. The hospital said Monday that the Border Police officer is in very serious condition. Another person is in moderate condition, and the rest were slightly injured.



Bangladesh Says Student Leaders Held for Their Own Safety

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Says Student Leaders Held for Their Own Safety

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladesh said three student leaders had been taken into custody for their own safety after the government blamed their protests against civil service job quotas for days of deadly nationwide unrest.

Students Against Discrimination head Nahid Islam and two other senior members of the protest group were Friday forcibly discharged from hospital and taken away by a group of plainclothes detectives.

The street rallies organized by the trio precipitated a police crackdown and days of running clashes between officers and protesters that killed at least 201 people, according to an AFP tally of hospital and police data.

Islam earlier this week told AFP he was being treated at the hospital in the capital Dhaka for injuries sustained during an earlier round of police detention.

Police had initially denied that Islam and his two colleagues were taken into custody before home minister Asaduzzaman Khan confirmed it to reporters late on Friday.

"They themselves were feeling insecure. They think that some people were threatening them," he said.

"That's why we think for their own security they needed to be interrogated to find out who was threatening them. After the interrogation, we will take the next course of action."

Khan did not confirm whether the trio had been formally arrested.

Days of mayhem last week saw the torching of government buildings and police posts in Dhaka, and fierce street fights between protesters and riot police elsewhere in the country.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government deployed troops, instituted a nationwide internet blackout and imposed a curfew to restore order.

- 'Carried out raids' -

The unrest began when police and pro-government student groups attacked street rallies organized by Students Against Discrimination that had remained largely peaceful before last week.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location to be tortured before he was released the next morning.

His colleague Asif Mahmud, also taken into custody at the hospital on Friday, told AFP earlier that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Police have arrested at least 4,500 people since the unrest began.

"We've carried out raids in the capital and we will continue the raids until the perpetrators are arrested," Dhaka Metropolitan Police joint commissioner Biplob Kumar Sarker told AFP.

"We're not arresting general students, only those who vandalized government properties and set them on fire."