The Haifa District Court sentenced Sabreen Zubeidat, resident of Sakhnin in northern Israel, to 50 months in prison for joining the Islamic State (ISIS) with her husband and her three children. Zubeidat was convicted of contacting a foreign agent and membership in a terrorist organization.

Zubeidat traveled with her family about a year and a half ago to Romania for a family holiday before continuing on to Turkey, where they contacted an ISIS activist. They crossed the border into Syria, and joined the group before settling in the Iraqi city of Mosul. They returned to Turkey in July 2016, where they were arrested before returning to Israel.

“The fact that the defendant abandoned her birthright, her normative nuclear family, acted contrary to the education she received from her mother and father, and risked her children’s lives, all in the name of ideology, indicates a great potential for future danger […] I will [also] mention that the defendant did not join a religious sect that deals with learning and prayer but an extremist terrorist organization with the will to inflict serious harm on the security of the State of Israel and its residents,” wrote Judge Avraham Elikem in the verdict.

Judge Elikem added that the severity of the punishment will also work as an example and an important deterrent for like-minded others.