Four school teachers from southern Israel have been arrested by police and security forces for allegedly being ISIS (Daesh) supporters and using their position as teachers to dispense propaganda to students and teachers.
The arrests were made public on Monday, as the four teachers – and two additional suspects – were indicted in the Be’ersheba District court.
They have been indicted on a number of charges, including distributing an illegal organization's materials, support for a terrorist organization, conspiracy to commit a crime and illegally exiting the country.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon ordered Islamic State an illegal organization in September 2014.
According to a press release by the Shin Bet Israel Security Agency, the six suspects, all from the Negev town of Houra, held secret meetings where they discussed ISIS ideology and watched ISIS propaganda videos and speeches by the group’s leaders. In addition, some of the six planned to join the fighting in Syria on behalf of the terror organization, the Shin Bet said.
According to an indictment presented against one of the defendants, from the end of 2013 until June 2015 the cell met once or twice a week next to a mosque in Houra. Present at one of their meetings in April 2014 was Othman Abdelkayan, a doctor who was planning to do a residency program at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba before he left for Syria to join the Islamic State, and died soon after.
The suspects include Bashir Jabran Salim abu Alkyan, 26, an elementary school teacher in Houra; Akram Al'ab Ahmed abu Alkyan, 30, an elementary school teacher in Rahat; Muhammad Al'ab Ahmed abu Alkyan, 27, a high school teacher in Houra; Khader Hassan abu Alkyan, 27, from Houra; Sharif Shahada Rezek abu Alkyan, from Atir and Hamza Abed Ali Alkyan, a teacher from Houra.
The Shin Bet said other people questioned include a school principal and other teachers who are suspected of having known about the men’s activities and failing to report them to authorities.
They added that other members of the cell had already left Israel to fight in Syria.
News of the arrests of the teachers prompted a response by Education Minister Naftali Bennett on Monday, who said “over the last few months, Beduin teachers in Hura have been advancing the ideology of Isis among their pupils. Teachers will not be terrorists in Israel. I asked them to be fired for educating for terror. We will have zero tolerance for those who advance terror. Meanwhile, we will advance good, healthy education for the Beduin population.”
He also called for Michal Cohen, director general of the Education Ministry, to revoke their teaching licenses.
The Education Ministry congratulated the Israel Security Agency and the Police for their "important actions that brought to the immediate halt to the hostile action within the Israeli education system."
The ministry said it would continue to act together with the security forces to maintain the safety of Israeli pupils.
Over the coming days the ministry will work in the schools where the educators were arrested, to restore confidence and stability to the educators and students, they said Monday.
