The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday said that the Facebook page of Anas Alatrash, an Arab terrorist from Judea and Samaria who died while attacking a checkpoint near Bethlehem last week, hinted at his planned martyrdom.

In a statement, the IDF said the incident occurred, “when Alatrash charged IDF police forces with a knife. The soldiers called out for him to stop, but he continued to run toward their position. The soldiers were then forced to fire on Alatrash, who died of his wounds after receiving medical treatment from Magen David Adom.”

The IDF said “his true intentions were revealed by his Facebook timeline, where he posted suicidal messages mentioning a ‘return’ to Allah shortly before the attack. Two days before the attack, Alatrash posted the above picture as his cover image on Facebook. The photo shows a well-known passage from the Quran, which in English means: ‘We belong to Allah, and to him we shall return.'”

This type of notice is traditionally posted after someone’s death — the fact that Alatrash posted it two days before he died strongly suggests that he was preparing to take his own life, the IDF said.

In a second message, posted just hours before the attack, Alatrash wrote: “Allah, take me to you. Your servants have been making it hard on me.”

The perpetrator’s messages suggest that he attacked IDF soldiers with the same intentions as many terrorists in the past – to end his own life and murder Israelis in the process, the IDF said.