Security analysts fear the latest killings may mark the opening of a brutal campaign of terror which is likely to escalate during the month of Ramadan, which starts in April.
Be’er Sheva killer Mohammad Ghaleb Abu al-Qi’an, 34, was a Bedouin former elementary schoolteacher from Hura, a few miles from Be’er Sheva. His social media activity is now forming a key part of the ongoing police investigation, a senior police source confirmed.
Be'er Sheva: Where Tuesday's attack which left four dead occurred (Google Maps)
Abu al-Qi’an had been jailed for four years in 2016, together with five members of his family, for posting praise for terror group ISIS and attempting to recruit jihadists to the cause.
But both Israeli national police and counter-terrorism experts have now discounted ISIS involvement in their investigation of the attack.
Instead, they are focusing on Israel’s traditional enemies, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah.
All three terror organisations have been trained by a shadowy Iranian group in how to use social media platforms to sow hatred for Jews among Arab Israelis, analysts disclosed. “Social media is being used by the terror groups and now plays a critical role in inspiring lone wolf attacks,” the police source told the JC.
“We will be looking very closely at the platforms he used and what he read and posted, as we would with anyone suspected of crims of this type.”
Two of the dead were mothers-of-three: Dorit Yahbas, 49, and Laura Yitzhak, 43. Rabbi Moshe Kravitzky, 50, a member of the Chabad community, and Menahem Yehezkel, a 67-year-old local resident, were also killed.
How the terror attack in Be'er Sheva earlier this week ended (Twitter)
Islamic Jihad and Hamas praised the atrocity. Sweets were distributed on street corners in the Gaza strip in celebration. But Prime Minister Naftali Bennett vowed to “hunt and reach those who help” terrorists, while Defense Minister Benny Gantz said the Israeli military would be on “high alert”.
The Islamic party, Ra’am, part of Israel’s ruling coalition, also condemned the attack, calling it “despicable.”
A spokesman for the Bedouin clan to which the assailant belonged said the “lone act represents only he who performed it. We are a family that believes in co-existence and obeying the law.”
Dr Michael Barak, from the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya – author of an upcoming report on the use of social media in recruiting jihadis and triggering attacks – told the JC that recent weeks have seen an “upsurge” in organised incitement, especially on the Telegram and TikTok platforms.
“On Telegram, Hamas is urging Palestinians in the West Bank to go to the checkpoints and attack Israelis,” Dr Barak said. “On TikTok, there are videos showing attacks on Charedi Jews in Jersualem, and urging young people to carry out more such attacks as acts of ‘resistance’ to Israeli occupation.”
He said Israel had tried to persuade TikTok – which is Chinese owned - to take down such videos, but the company had not done so. “With these posts, I think there will be a big increase in attacks,” he said. There were “Hamas sleeper cells” in Jerusalem, he added.
Dr Barak revealed that at the heart of the terror groups’ increasingly sophisticated use of social media is the Islamic Radio and Television Union (IRTVU), which has had a branch in Gaza since 2014, opened by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
Dr Barak’s forthcoming report will state that IRTVU reports to Iran’s Islamic Culture and Guidance Bureau and serves as “the propaganda arm of the Quds Force” – which, he said, is an “integral part of the IRGC”.
Major General Eitan Dangot, a former Occupied Territories military chief, said there had to be a “national programme” to prevent an imminent escalation of violence. He agreed that social media were likely to fan the flames, both through organised incitement and through the glorification of the Be’er Sheva attack, “which will influence the dreams and motivations of those planning individual, lone wolf terror”.
“The area is bubbling”, he said. Following the conflict last May, when Hamas fired more than 4,000 rockets at Israel and experienced retaliatory airstrikes, it would want “silence” in Gaza itself. The threat now, Maj Gen Dangot said, was elsewhere – principally, within Israel.
