Saif Dawood travelled from Tel Aviv to Syria via Istanbul in 2015, when the group had taken control of vast swaths of Iraq and Syria and declared it a caliphate.
Dawood claims he was a nurse in Raqqa, then the nerve center of Islamic State in Syria, working as a first aid trauma medic until 2017. He is now held in a north Syria prison run by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Dawood told Rudaw his only intention in coming to Syria was “helping the Syrian people from the dictator Bashar al-Assad.”
However, he then said he was also drawn in by then ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s promises that “this state would be on based on the Prophet Mohammed” – a claim he said was misleading.
He said it was wrong for him to have joined the militant group – but does not regret it.
“I don’t regret joining ISIS, because I have learned a lot from this mistake, and I admit now that I took a wrong step.”
Dawood had been in a Free Syrian Army (FSA) jail for four months until January 2018, when he said he fled towards Kurdish areas in northern Syria, where he was taken into custody by the SDF.
“I wish and dream that I could break out of prison and go back to Israel,” Dawood told Rudaw. “Escaping from this prison is but a dream for me, as security here is tough.”
Dawood is a native of Kafr Bara, a town 30 minutes away from the city of Tel Aviv. Israel should take him back because he is a citizen, he says - however, he would be unable to fight their refusal to do so as he is now too “fragile and weak.”
ISIS exacted brutal rule over the territory it controlled, including the subjection of thousands of women and children to capture and abuse.
With the support of the Global Coalition against ISIS, the SDF was able to take control of Baghouz, the militants’ last bastion in Deir ez-Zor province, in March 2019.
The Kurdish-led forces captured thousands of ISIS fighters in the battle to retake the town. It currently holds an estimated 2,000 foreign ISIS fighters and 8,000 local ISIS militants in northeast Syrian detention centers.
An additional 70,000 women and children affiliated with the group are held in camps across Syria, including al-Hol, in the northeast Syrian province of Hasaka.
Amid Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria in October 2019, the SDF redirected its personnel guarding camps and detention centers to the frontlines. Hundreds of ISIS militants escaped SDF-controlled prisons – though they say they majority of escapees have been recaptured.
