Islamic State video seems to show child shooting Arab Israeli ‘spy’

The latest video posted by the Islamic State carries a chilling twist: It appears to show a young boy in camouflage fatigues taking aim with a handgun and pumping fatal shots into a man the extremist group called “an Israeli spy.” The Washington Post reports.

In East Jerusalem, however, the parents of the Arab Israeli victim described him as a misguided teen who was duped into joining the Islamic State and killed because he wanted to come home.

“They took my son; they tricked him. They offered him money, a house and a bride, and he told us he had been lied to and that he was sorry for the disgrace he brought upon our house,” said Hind Musallam, mother of Mohammad Said Ismail Musallam, 19.

Family members said they had not watched the video, released late Tuesday, but had seen still images. They confirmed that the man shot was Musallam.

The 13-minute video, which appeared on the Islamic State’s Furqan media outlet, could not be verified. But the source of the video and the style were consistent with previous videos from the group.

The video shows a man identified as Musallam sitting in a room in an orange jumpsuit and describing how the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad had recruited him.

He is then shown kneeling in a field as a bearded militant in camouflage speaks in French to the camera. “Allah granted us the grace to kill Jews in France,” the militant said, in a reference to attacks two months ago in Paris.

Then the militant introduces a boy standing behind the captive as “one of our young lions who will kill those sent by the stupid Mossad to spy on the secrets of the religious warriors and the Muslims.”

The boy steps forward — standing face-to-face with the kneeling Musallam — aims a handgun at Musallam’s forehead and fires one shot. Musallam crumples to the ground, and the boy stands above his prostrate body and fires three more bullets, shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is great).

In Paris, a French official told the Associated Press that the bearded man and the boy in the video have been identified as French citizens.

The report gave no details, but the official told the AP that investigators were exploring possible family links to a militant, Mohammed Merah, who waged deadly attacks on a Jewish school and French paratroopers in southern France in 2012. Merah was killed in a police raid.

Israeli authorities offered no comment on the Musallam slaying.

The family has had no word from the Israeli government, Musallam’s father complained. “We are citizens,” he said and pounded a small table. “Nobody from the state has spoken with us.”

Musallam’s mother added: “We are not ashamed. We are not collaborators or traitors or spies.”

The parents said all members of their family were Israeli citizens, originally from the city of Jaffa on the coast near Tel Aviv. The video shows Musallam’s Israeli passport. Arab Israelis comprise about 20 percent of Israel’s population and often complain that they are marginalized.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office declined to speak on the matter and did not confirm whether Musallam was an Israeli citizen or a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem.

On Wednesday morning, family members gathered at the Musallams’ modest apartment in the Neve Yaakov section of East Jerusalem , a mixed neighborhood with a majority of Jewish residents and a small but significant number of Arab Israelis. The international community considers Neve Yaakov an illegal settlement on occupied territory. Israel disputes this.

The Musallam family has lived in the apartment for 15 years. The parents said their son graduated from high school last year and worked as a national service volunteer with the fire department. The father, Said Musallam, drives a bus for the Egged transportation company. The mother is a house cleaner.

The couple said their son had never worked for Israeli security agencies, neither the domestic Shin Bet nor the foreign intelligence service Mossad.

“They say he was a spy?” his mother said, referring to the Islamic State, in anger and grief. “Look how we live! We are simple people. Where is all the money a spy or a traitor or a collaborator would have?”

The family said Musallam left home four months ago. The father told Israeli reporters last month that his son had borrowed money and was traveling to another Israeli city. When they phoned him several days later, his cellphone was apparently turned off.

Musallam’s mother said Wednesday that the family believes he went to Turkey but does not know how he got there or how he paid for the trip. The Musallams said they gave him only $100.

Two months ago, family members said, they began to get messages from Musallam and men who said they knew him — texts on their telephones, e-mails, a Facebook message and video calls via Skype.

“He told us he had joined Daesh,” Hind Musallam said, using the Arabic word for the Islamic State. “He said his new friends like him and that he was fighting with them.”

But in subsequent communications, she said, her son said he wanted to come home. The family sent him $200 to an address in Egypt. The parents saw him on Skype and Facebook. He now had long hair and a beard.

“He told us he was sorry, that he was seduced. He wanted to come home, but they would not let him. Who would do this to our son? Not even the devil himself,” Hind Musallam said.

The Reuters news agency quoted an Israeli security official as saying that Musallam traveled to Turkey on Oct. 24 to cross the border and fight with the Islamic State in Syria.

Family members told a reporter with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz last month that a man approached them and told them that Musallam was in an Islamic State prison in Syria and that he had tried to leave the group and flee to Turkey.

Last month, the militants’ English-language magazine, Dabiq, included an article titled “Interview with a Spy Working for the Israeli Mossad.”

In the alleged interview, Musallam gives his name, age and home town and says he worked as a firefighter. He is featured in a photograph.

In it, Musallam is quoted as saying that he was recruited by “a guy named Eli” and that he attended “a training course on self-control and on how to survive an interrogation,” in addition to weapons training.

The article claims he received payments of 5,000 shekels (about $1,200) to look for weapons dealers and Palestinians who wanted to infiltrate from the West Bank into Israel.

In the alleged interview, Musallam says he was recruited by Mossad to go to Syria and report on locations of bases, weapons caches and Palestinian fighters. He says he was given the phone number of a smuggler on the Turkish border and that the Mossad agent told him not to contact the agency until he was a trusted fighter.

In the article, the interviewer asks: “How was your cover blown?”

The article says that Musallam failed to follow orders, then tried to reach out to his father in a bid to come home, but that his Islamic State overseers became suspicious and imprisoned him. He later confessed, according to the article.

Musallam’s father dismissed the article as lies and propaganda.

The mother pointed to their small apartment, now crowded with cameras and reporters after news broke of the videotaped killing.

“Do we really look like spies to you?” she said.