Published: 5 September 2024
Last updated: 5 September 2024
Israeli security officials say they are facing a worrying increase in Palestinian terror throughout the West Bank and have warned of a potential large scale attack funded by Iran.
"The Iranians are delivering money and weapons to the West Bank. In recent months, we've seen an increase in Iranian efforts to turn the area into a real battlefield. The Palestinian Authority, like us, fears the possibility of a scenario similar to October 7 in the West Bank,” a security official told Sky News Arabic this week.
“We’re concerned about the possibility of a large-scale attack on one of the settlements or even within Israel and we’re preparing for such a scenario. While the current focus is on the northern West Bank, we’re also monitoring threats in the southern West Bank and operations may expand there as well.”
A major security operation to counter terrorism in the northern West Bank continues. The operation began on August 28 after a thwarted bomb attack on Tel Aviv but follows months of intensifying tensions in the area.
So far, according to the IDF, more than 30 gunmen have been killed in the operation, among them the head of Hamas in Jenin and the head of Islamic Jihad in the Tulkarem area. The dead also include some civilians, among them a 16-year-old girl.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday that the military has been “mowing the lawn” during an ongoing major operation against terror groups in the West Bank, but will eventually need to “pull out the roots.”
Gallant said that “the rise of terror in Judea and Samaria is an issue that we need to be focused on at every moment.”
The operation — internally dubbed “Summer Camps” by the army — began on August 28 with simultaneous raids on Jenin, Tulkarem and the Far’a camp near Tubas, with the goal of dismantling Iran-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror networks in the three areas of the northern West Bank.
Following an assessment in the West Bank with senior IDF officers, Gallant said that “the rise of terror in Judea and Samaria is an issue that we need to be focused on at every moment.” He was calling the West Bank by its biblical name.
“The process is an attack to prevent terror. We are mowing the lawn, [but] the moment will also come when we will pull out the roots, that must be done,” he said.
“The rise [in terror] that comes in the form of car bombs and shooting everywhere, these are things that need to be put to an end,” he added.
“These terror organizations that call themselves by all kinds of names, in Nur Shams, or Tulkarm, or Far’a, or Jenin — they [the terror groups] should be wiped out. Every such terrorist should be eliminated, [or] if they surrender, arrest them. There is no other option, use all the forces, everyone who is needed, with full strength.”
While the army battles Palestinian terror, it is also struggling to control settler violence in the West Bank.
Two Jewish settlers were charged this week with racially-motivated offences, and one was also charged with a terrorism offence.
The charges related to an incident last month when four Arab-Israeli women and a toddler mistakenly entered the settlement of Givat Ronen after taking a wrong turn. According to the indictment about 20 people were involved in the attack but only two, David Chai Chassidai and Yaakov Goelman, were charged.
The indictment said Chassidai, 30, who is charged with the terror offence pursued the women in his vehicle and then on foot as others in the area started yelling, "Come, we want to kill you."
A crowd of settlers, some armed and some masked, began pursuing them, throwing stones and rocks at their vehicle. The family members barricaded themselves inside the car with the windows closed, while the attackers shouted, "You are terrorists," "You came to carry out an attack," "You have nowhere to run," and "No one will hear you here."
Settler numbers in the West Bank continue to grow. A new BBC analysis found 29 of the 129 illegal outposts were set up last year - more than in any previous year. It cites documents showing that organisations with close ties to the Israeli government provided money and land used to establish new outposts.
READ MORE
Gallant: IDF ‘mowing the lawn’ in West Bank, but will need to ‘pull out the roots’ (Times of Israel)
Two West Bank settlers indicted for assaulting Arab Israeli women; one charged with terror(Haaretz)
RELATED ANALYSIS
Israeli incursions into the West Bank risk fuelling Palestinian resistance rather than quelling it (Leonie Fleischmann, The Conversation)
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