Shortly before sunset, Nidal Salah stared across the fence towards his new life in Syria with the ISIS movement — paraglider at the ready.
Shortly before sunset, Nidal Salah stared across the fence towards his new life in Syria with the ISIS movement — paraglider at the ready.
Firing up the engine-powered glider, the 23-year-old Arab-Israeli rose over the Israeli-Syrian demarcation line towards the town of Jamlah, controlled by an ISIS-affiliated group.
He became the first Israeli to take such a route to enter Syria’s civil war, with his plans apparently unknown to his family and authorities.
His fate had been a mystery, but in an interview with AFP his family confirmed they have received multiple messages from him, including a photo apparently showing him with two other jihadists.
His trip sparked an investigation in Israel, where authorities have since arrested six others suspected of seeking to join ISIS.
For his family, Salah’s fate was sealed nearly a year earlier, in November 2014, the day another man, Jihad Hijala, walked out of prison.
Hijala had been in Syria, allegedly with an Al Qaeda affiliate, but returned to Israel and was jailed for six months.
Hijala is accused of establishing a jihadist cell that would travel to Syria.
Among those he recruited was Salah. The Salahs are Muslim but the family are not particularly devout. Salah began going to his mosque five times a day and would only talk about religion.
“His personality changed,” said his brother Samih, who shared a bedroom with him until recently. “He banned listening to music, and would only listen to (recordings of) the Quran.”
Salah’s uncle Rifaat accused the Israeli security agency Shin Bet of failing to monitor Hijala’s activities.
“If Israel wanted to stop him, they could have stopped him,” he said.
In total, seven people from the small town would meet at Hijala’s house, including two of his brothers, and discuss plans to travel to Syria, Shin Bet said. The other six were arrested on charges of aiming to join ISIS.
