An Israeli Arab has been indicted for supporting the Islamic State terror organization (IS) on social media and for considering traveling to Syria and joining the group, a plan that was not carried out due to his wife’s objection and his fear of being caught on the way to Syria.

The man, 29-year-old Waseem Ahmed Khutba from the village of Reineh in the Galilee, uploaded Facebook posts supporting IS, the group’s leader, its ideology and its terror attacks. On the day of a suicide attack in Brussels, Belgium, that killed dozens of people and injured hundreds, Khutba wrote a post supporting the attack. “If you thought it is your right to prevent free women from wearing a hijab, is it not our right to execute and behead your men? Of course it is,” he wrote.

Khutba said during his interrogation and at the Nazareth Magistrates Court that he does not believe in the Israeli law system. He said he viewed Israel as a heretic state and that his goal is to join IS in Syria.

Security guard caught a man with a knife in his pocket next to the Har Herzl station of the Jerusalem light rail.  The security guards searched the man after he had aroused suspiscion. The police called to the site subsequently arrested him. Preliminary interrogation revealed the man to be a 17-year-old illegal immigrant, and is still undergoing  investigation.

During nightly raids, the IDF confiscated four illegal weapons workshops in the Al-Qubayba village in the Binyamin region of Judea and Samaria. One suspected of possession of the workshops was arrested in the Qatanna village and taken in for questioning.

The IDF also seized in Harbat Abu Salman located in Ephraim, one self-made rifle along with two air pistols.

IDF forces demolished in nightly raids the houses of terrorists Muhammed Ahmed Mkhamra in Yatta, who had collected intelligence and planned the shooting attack of June 8, and of his cousin Khaled Muhammed Musa Mkhamra who took part in its execution.

The shooting attack had taken place in the Sarona market of Tel Aviv, in which four Israelis were killed.

The Knesset Plenum approved a bill transferring the responsibility on cyber security from the security agencies to the National Cyber Authority, in a 48 against 8 vote.

“The feeling that this equates a new collection agency devoted to secret phone tapping the likes of Big Brother is misguided.” said Likud MK Avi Dichter, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. “This is not a collection agency but a body that will deal with directives.”

The new authority will consider both security and political-diplomatic implications and will properly organize the gathering of information on cyber attacks against Israeli targets. It will not gather intelligence independently, but will rely on the work of existing intelligence agencies. The Israeli security agencies will continue to be responsible for their own cyber protection and they will be the ones to actually collect the information.