Israel jails Arab Israeli for joining IS

An Israeli court sentenced an Israeli Arab man to more than five years in jail on Thursday for joining the Islamic State jihadist group, a statement said.

The district court in the northern Israeli city of Haifa said in a statement that it sentenced Wissam Zbedat to 70 months in prison and a 14,000 shekel ($4,000) fine for travelling to Syria to fight for IS.

The prosecution accused him and his wife Sabreen of leaving the country in 2015 with their three children then aged three, six and eight for Syria to join IS.

Police said Sabreen had convinced her husband to join the group.

The couple, who come from Sakhnin in northern Israel, received religious instruction and military training.

Wissam later became a fighter for the group, including in the Iraqi city of Mosul, where he was injured in the leg.

Following the injury and a bombing campaign by the international coalition fighting IS, the family decided to leave, but were arrested in Turkey and returned to Israel in September 2016. The children have been put into the care of relatives.

In March, Sabreen was sentenced to 50 months in prison.

It was the first known case of an entire Israeli Arab family joining up with the jihadist organisation, the Shin Bet domestic security agency said.

Shin Bet has said it estimates that around 50 Israeli Arabs have travelled to Iraq or Syria to fight with IS.

By the end of 2016, 83 people -- most of them Arab Israelis -- were behind bars in Israel as suspected IS sympathisers, up from just 12 a year earlier, according to Haaretz newspaper.

The Shin Bet has said IS sympathisers among the Jewish state's Arab minority pose a "serious security threat" for Israel.

Arab Israelis are descendants of Palestinians who remained on their land following the creation of Israel in 1948.

They account for some 17.5 percent of the population of eight million.

Source: AFP