Israel Security Agencies Disrupted 46 ISIS Plots in Three Years

Israeli security forces have disrupted 46 Islamic State linked plots in the three years following the October 7, 2023, Hamas offensive. This number is nearly equal to the 50 operations recorded in the nine and a half years prior to the conflict, according to a report released Thursday by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Aaron Zelin, the Gloria and Ken Levy Senior Fellow at the institute, compiled a database of publicly reported arrests by Israeli forces dating back to 2014. The data shows a shift in the nature of the threats. Before the war, foreign fighters typically traveled to Syria or focused on online propaganda, resulting in 18 actual or attempted attacks on foreign soil. Since October 2023, the group has attempted 28 attacks, with direct organizational links replacing lone wolf tactics in many cases.

The plots have grown more complex and specific in their targets. In late December 2023, investigators in Ras al-Amud, east Jerusalem, arrested two men aged 19 and 20. They allegedly possessed chemicals for explosives, bomb-making notes, and an Islamic State flag while planning to detonate a truck near the Knesset. In Tayibe, near Kfar Saba, five men calculated the explosive material needed to collapse Tel Aviv’s Azrieli Towers. Another four-man cell near Hebron, whose leader maintained contact with operatives abroad, manufactured roughly 100 devices intended for use against Israeli soldiers.

Zelin describes this escalation as part of a strategy to encourage Palestinians to reject Hamas in favor of the jihadist group. In January 2024, IS spokesman Abu Hudhayfa al-Ansari urged supporters to fight Jews and Christians in the streets of the West. The group’s weekly newsletter from September 2025 noted that Arab states protecting Israel’s borders made entry difficult, suggesting a focus on regional hosts of US bases and Jewish communities abroad.

The threat has yielded lethal results in recent years. In 2022, two Arab Israeli terrorists who had sworn allegiance to ISIS killed two 19-year-old Border Police officers, Yazan Fallah and Shirel Aboukaret. In April 2024, IS-inspired Palestinian terrorist Ahmed Dawabsha murdered 14-year-old Benjamin Achimeir in the West Bank. While many recent suspects were teenagers radicalized online, more than a third of the cases involved direct contact with Islamic State members abroad.

One example of this digital coordination emerged in 2025, when three residents of Arara contacted an operative in Syria via TikTok to receive bomb-building manuals. Separately, a cell in the Sur Baher neighborhood of east Jerusalem planned to travel to Syria for training. Israel has responded by expanding its pursuit of these networks beyond its territory, conducting nighttime arrests and strikes in Syria.