Relatives and friends mourn at the funeral of Leah Yom Tov, an Israeli woman killed by a Hamas rocket fired from Gaza. Photo: Reuters/Ilia Yefimovich/dpa.

Jihadi groups have upped their violent rhetoric against Israel as the latest conflict with the Palestinians deepened this week, with many Islamist organizations calling on their supporters to attack Jewish and Israeli targets worldwide.

Several of their recent declarations were picked up the Washington, DC-based think tank Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI), which monitors communications among jihadi groups.

On May 12, the As-Sahab Foundation — the official media outlet of Al-Qaeda Central (AQC) — released Issue 34 of its Al-Nafir “awareness raising leaflet.” The bulletin, titled “Al-Aqsa under the Protection of the Descendants of Al-Bara’ bin Malik,” declared that Muslims are capable of waging jihad even with limited military capabilities. It urged Muslims to attack and kill Jews and Americans, to protest and rebel against Arab rulers, and to boycott American and Israeli products.

The Al Qaeda-affiliated Gazan militia Jaysh Al-Ummah Al-Salafi has been among the Islamist terror groups firing rocket barrages against Israeli civilian targets.

The bulletin began by decrying the “aggressions of the sons of Zion” against worshipers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the residents of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem, claiming that these actions of “the brothers of apes and pigs” demonstrate the Jews’ “hidden hatred to Muslims and their wish to uproot them for Jerusalem to establish their so-called temple on the ruins of the stolen Al-Aqsa.”

At the same time, the bulletin asserted, there is a “world in collusion with the sons of Zion, which provides them with money, weapons, men, and even medicine.” It alleged that western governments gave Israel priority in receiving vaccines for COVID-19 because “they value the sons of Zion’s standing in the front line in the confrontation with Islam and Muslims.”

The same bulletin quoted a 2002 statement by Osama bin Laden, in which he praised the then-ongoing “Al-Aqsa Intifada”: “These momentous events are the blessed jihad that has continued its march toward the desired objective and the promised day. It has come to expose the feeble statement and refuted argument … ‘What can we do? There is nothing we can do! It is not up to us!’ … In view of the bloody events that our nation is subjected to, everyone is today required to take up jihad and serious action.”

The bulletin ended by reiterating Al Qaeda’s goal of destroying the Jewish state. “By Allah, whom there is no God but He, we will defend you and not fail you until victory is achieved and Palestine becomes Islamic once again or we taste martyrdom,” it declared.