Police continue to investigate the extent of the involvement of members of the families of the Islamic State-affiliated terrorists who carried out Sunday’s deadly terrorist attack in Hadera.
Channel 12 News reported on Monday evening that the two terrorists arrived in Hadera using a Mazda belonging to of one of the five family members who were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the attack.
A search of this vehicle found bullet proof vests, camouflage nets, flashlights and binoculars.
Investigators believe the terrorists intended to carry out a mass killing spree, and they were prepared for a lengthy confrontation with security forces. Only the determined and swift response of the undercover force that happened to be in the area prevented the massacre they had planned. A total of about 60 bullets were fired at the scene of the attack, most of them by the two terrorists.
The terrorists are members of an ISIS cell that was not identified in time by the defense establishment, despite the fact that the terrorists were known to the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), as are dozens of other Israeli Arabs who support the murderous terrorist organization. Even though the two terrorists were equipped with many weapons for the attack, and even uploaded a video in which they documented themselves before the operation itself - the Shin Bet did not receive a warning about the attack and now acknowledges that this cell should have been caught beforehand.
The Channel 12 report further said that an incident from the time that one of the terrorists, Ayman Agbaria, served in prison, should have served as a warning to the defense establishment. In 2017, there were 87 ISIS prisoners in Israel. As part of dealing with the phenomenon of Israeli Arab joining ISIS, the Israel Prison Service (IPS) established a practice of rehabilitating or "neutralizing" those activists through special re-education that they undergo while serving time in prison wards for terrorists affiliated with Fatah.
Agbaria was arrested in Turkey after trying to cross the border into Syria to join ISIS. In 2016, he arrived in Israel and began serving a prison sentence at Gilboa Prison, Wing 2, which is associated with Fatah prisoners. At the time, the Fatah prisoners recognized that he is a much more extreme person than other ISIS prisoners. They started beating and punishing him, and at one point he was expelled from the wing and transferred to a wing of Hamas prisoners - where he continued to serve his sentence.
