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A New Wave of Terror Hits the Holy Land And How the IDF is Battling ISIS in Israel By Tzvi Leff
O
n March 22, Mohammad Ghaleb Abu al-Qi’an woke up in the Bedouin town of Hura, a sandy hamlet situated in Israel’s Negev desert. First publishing a fiery screed on Facebook pledging allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group, Qi’an then climbed into his stolen blue Hyundai minivan and drove to nearby Be’er Sheva’s sprawling BIG shopping center. Al-Qian didn’t stop driving when he reached a teeming bus stop and hitchhiking post, plowing into the dozens returning home from work and instantly killing two women. The Bedouin Islamist then disembarked from the vehicle and drew the kitchen knife he had armed himself with, stabbing and killing another two people. Only when a nearby bus driver shot and killed the terrorist with his personal sidearm did the deadly rampage come to an end. The combined ramming and stabbing onslaught was Israel’s deadliest terror attack since two Palestinians opened fire at Tel Aviv’s tony Sarona Market in 2016. An elementary school teacher and father of five, AlQian had previously served two years in prison after being caught attempting to travel to Syria in order to join ISIS’s campaign against President Bashar Assad’s government. The indictment was damning; after special forces arrested him at Ben Gurion Airport in 2015, Al-Qian admitted to exploiting his position at a large Arab school to recruit his impressionable charges into a radical Salafist ideology.
