Over the past twelve months, Israel has seen a steady stream of low-grade terror attacks—stabbings, car-rammings, and occasional shootings. Besides those successful enough to grab headlines, hundreds of others, including the recent planned attack on a wedding hall, were thwarted by Israeli security forces. Analyzing the causes of the attacks, Kobi Michael notes that they constitute more a series of small waves of terror than a single large one and suggests some ways forward:

The act of stabbing has turned into a kind of “social-cleansing” mechanism. . . . Traditional values or customs, such as family honor and blood feuds, remain effective and influential, and thus in many cases of “lone-wolf” attacks the perpetrators are family members who are avenging the death of relatives who sought to carry out an attack and were killed by the Israeli security forces or to defend the honor of their family. . . . Added to these internal factors are [external] incitement (though institutional incitement has declined in the past two months) and the copycat effect. . . .

Israel cannot address all of the fundamental causes motivating “lone-wolf” terrorism, but it can moderate some of these factors. . . . There is great importance in maintaining a low level of friction with the civilian population and continuing to refrain from collective punishment. In addition, Israel can make a very significant contribution toward improvement of the economic reality in the West Bank and the Palestinian Authority’s strengthened ability to govern, which in turn can improve the restraint of violence.

Regarding the long term, . . . Israel can redefine Area C, [which, pursuant to the Oslo Accords, remains under its direct control]. . . . Instead of seeing all of it as a single bloc, it can be categorized into a number of areas possessing different statuses for different purposes. [This] would enable Israel to maintain control over the most essential areas for security and settlement needs, while allowing it to allocate land to the economic infrastructure required for developing the Palestinian economy in a way that expands the territory under full Palestinian control.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.