A video posted online by Islamic State militants on Tuesday showed a boy fatally shooting Muhammad Musallam, an Israeli Arab accused by the group of spying for Israel’s intelligence service.
The video, published by the group’s Furqan media outlet, shows Musallam, 19, sitting in a room wearing an orange jumpsuit, talking about how he had been recruited and trained by Mossad, Reuters reported.
It then shows Musallam being escorted to a field and then being shot in the head by a boy, described by an older, French-speaking fighter as one of the “cubs of the caliphate.”
In the video, Musallam repeats what he had said last month in an interview published by the group’s English language magazine Dabiq, in which he said he had joined IS to report to the Israelis on weapons caches, bases and Palestinian recruits.
Israel and his family denied that he was an Israeli spy. “Not only have they killed our son but they wanted to destroy his image and our image. Look at our house. I work as a house cleaner and his father is a bus driver. If we were on the Mossad pay roll I would not need to work. Honor is all we have. And they want to take that from us.”
An Israeli security official had said Musallam went to Syria to fight for IS in October last year.
Musallam’s father denied his son was a spy, saying a month ago that his son had gone missing while on a tourist trip to Turkey.
Said Musallam said his son had been trying to return home when he was captured. He accused the militants of forcing his son to say he was a spy before killing him just for show.
“Mohammad was told by them to say about himself that he works for the Israelis,” Said Musallam said. “They took him as a victim, only to show the world, so the world would be afraid of them.”
