Israeli Arab Man Arrested for Fighting With ISIS in Iraq
by Yotam Rozenwald / Tazpit News Agency
ISIS soldiers in convoy in confiscated trucks in Iraq. Photo: Twitter / nayelshafei.
Yosef Chaldi, a 19 year old Israeli-Arab from Nazareth, was charged on Sunday with joining ISIS and participating in their terror activities.
According to the charges, Chaldi joined ISIS around October 2014. He traveled to Turkey and crossed the border to Syria with the help of ISIS operatives residing in Turkey. In Syria, he went through basic military training for three weeks, and was then stationed in Fallujah, Iraq.
Chaldi participated in five battles. During the fifth battle, as he was placing explosives aimed at Shiite forces, he was seriously wounded, apparently in a coalition air-strike. He was treated in an ISIS hospital in Fallujah, where doctors had to amputate one of his arms.
Upon his return to Israel, Chaldi was arrested at Ben-Gurion airport.
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Chaldi is not the first Israeli-Arab arrested for ISIS-related activity. Both in November and December of 2014, seven ISIS cell members from the Galilee region were arrested by Israel’s security forces.
ISIS is an illegal terror organization under Israeli law. Chaldi is accused of being a member and participating in-ISIS activity, contacting a foreign agent, participating in illegal military exercises, visiting forbidden countries, and carrying out illegal transactions with a terrorist organization.
