ISIS threatens Jerusalem's Christians, stirs up extremism in Gaza

Islamic State (ISIS) militants allegedly have threatened to “purify” Jerusalem by slaughtering Christians if they don’t leave before the end of Ramadan on July 18.

Flyers purportedly from ISIS Palestine were circulated in East Jerusalem, promising “revenge” against Christians, Israeli news outlet Arutz Sheva reported late last month. Middle East Concern said Christians in the city became alarmed by the leaflets, which bore the ISIS black flag. But some doubt their origin, according to BosNewsLife.

Christians in Jerusalem have asked people to pray that they would not fear and would respond with wisdom. They also asked for prayers for justice against those responsible for the threats, cooperation and peace between different religious groups in Jerusalem, and that ISIS would not gain sway among Muslims in Palestine. Muslim and Christian communities of Jerusalem condemned the flyers, according to Middle East Concern.

Israel’s small Christian population (about 161,000) is concentrated in Jerusalem and Galilee, according to Jewish News Service. Although much of the Christian population is Arab, the Palestinian Authority (PA) barely acknowledged the ISIS threat against them. Its statement in response to the flyers did not mention ISIS or the call for religion-based genocide, Arutz Sheva reported, adding it was consistent with the PA’s previous treatment of Christians.

The Christian community was already on edge after some Muslim youths attacked and vandalized Christian homes and the Ethiopian Patriarchate, and an imam in Jerusalem posted a pro-ISIS video online, according to Middle East Concern.

But ISIS threats are not limited to Christians. ISIS also threatened the Jewish and both of Palestine’s political groups, Hamas and Fatah. The U.S. State Department has listed Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization since 1997. In a June 30 video, ISIS said it would overthrow Hamas because of its lenient application of Sharia law.

“We will uproot the state of the Jews [Israel] and you [Hamas] and Fatah [in the West Bank], and all of the secularists are nothing and you will be overrun by our creeping multitudes,” a masked Islamic State spokesman said in a video addressed to the “tyrants of Hamas,” The Times of Israel reported.

ISIS activity in nearby Iraq and Syria has energized extremists in Gaza. The New York Times reported that some militants loyal to ISIS, but not officially connected, are suspected of setting off about a dozen bombs targeting Hamas in the past year. Nathan Thrall, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, told the Times the estimated number of extremists increased from several hundred a few years ago to a few thousand today.

“Terrorism is knocking on our borders,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to The Jerusalem Post. “Islamic State is not only across from the Golan Heights, it is also in Egypt, across from Rafah, in other words across from our borders.”

Netanyahu said Israel is “together with Egypt and many other states in the Middle East and the world in the struggle against extreme Islamic terrorism.”

Just days before the threats in Jerusalem, an ISIS spokesman called on Muslims to make Ramadan a time of “calamity for the infidels.” The group took credit for deadly attacks in Tunisia and Kuwait on June 26.