By Yotam Rozenwald
JERUSALEM — Yosef Chaldi, a 19 year old Israeli-Arab from Nazareth, was charged today in the District Court of Nazareth for joining ISIS and participating in its terror activities.
Chaldi joined ISIS around October 2014. He traveled to Turkey and crossed the border to Syria, using the help of ISIS operatives residing in Turkey. In Syria, he went through basic military training for three weeks, and was then stationed in Fallujah, Iraq.
Chaldi participated in five battles. During the fifth battle, as he was placing chargers aimed at Shiite forces, he was seriously wounded, apparently in a coalition air-strike. He was treated in an ISIS hospital in Fallujah, where doctors had to amputate one of his arms.
Upon his return to Israel, Chaldi was arrested in Ben-Gurion airport.
Chaldi is not the first Israeli-Arab arrested for ISIS-related activity. Both In November and December of 2014, seven ISIS cell members from the Galilee region were arrested by Israel’s security forces.
ISIS is an illegal terror organization under Israeli law. Chaldi is accused of being a member and participating in-ISIS, contacting a foreign agent, participating in illegal military exercises, visiting forbidden countries and carrying out illegal transactions with a terrorist organization.
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Rozenwald is a staff writer for the Tazpit News Agency in Israel.