On Sunday, Ari Fuld, a forty-five-year-old dual Israeli-American citizen, was stabbed to death by a Palestinian. Bassam Tawil argues that Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, provoked the attack with his most recent speech accusing Jews of trying to pray at the al-Aqsa mosque:

In a speech before the PLO executive committee in Ramallah on September 15, Abbas repeated the old libel that Israel is planning to establish special Jewish prayer zones inside the al-Aqsa mosque. . . . Abbas’s allegation was quickly picked up by several media outlets in the Arab world, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. The headlines that appeared on websites affiliated with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad . . . claimed that Israel was planning to permit Jews to pray inside the al-Aqsa mosque.

Needless to say, there is no Israeli plan to allow Jews to pray inside the mosque. However, in the past few years, Jews, like all other non-Muslims, have been allowed to resume their perfectly legal visits to the Temple Mount. Thousands of Jews have toured the holy site under police protection, despite provocations and violent attacks by Muslims. It is worth noting that any kind of prayer or “religious displays” by Jews or Christians anywhere on the Temple Mount are completely forbidden by the Israeli police.

Why is Abbas’s false accusation significant and dangerous? Hours after reports were published of Abbas’s allegation, a seventeen-year-old Palestinian from the town of Yatta in the southern West Bank fatally stabbed Ari Fuld. . . . According to Palestinian terrorist groups, the terrorist, Khalil Jabarin, decided to murder a Jew in response to Israeli “crimes” against the al-Aqsa mosque in particular and Islamic holy sites in general.

In other words, the terrorist was influenced by Abbas’s incitement, and this is why he decided to set out on his deadly mission. There is no doubt that the terrorist saw the reports quoting Abbas’s claim that Israel was planning to allow Jews to pray inside the al-Aqsa mosque. . . .

Abbas’s false claim was not the first libel of its kind. . . . It was Abbas who sparked the 2015 “knife intifada” with his accusation that Jews “with their filthy feet were defiling the al-Aqsa mosque.”

On Tuesday, a Hizballah drone attack injured three people in northern Israel. The next day, another attack, targeting an IDF base, injured eighteen people, six of them seriously, in Arab al-Amshe, also in the north. This second attack involved the simultaneous use of drones carrying explosives and guided antitank missiles. In both cases, the defensive systems that performed so successfully last weekend failed to stop the drones and missiles. Ron Ben-Yishai has a straightforward explanation as to why: the Lebanon-backed terrorist group is getting better at evading Israel defenses. He explains the three basis systems used to pilot these unmanned aircraft, and their practical effects:

These systems allow drones to act similarly to fighter jets, using “dead zones”—areas not visible to radar or other optical detection—to approach targets. They fly low initially, then ascend just before crashing and detonating on the target. The terrain of southern Lebanon is particularly conducive to such attacks.

But this requires skills that the terror group has honed over months of fighting against Israel. The latest attacks involved a large drone capable of carrying over 50 kg (110 lbs.) of explosives. The terrorists have likely analyzed Israel’s alert and interception systems, recognizing that shooting down their drones requires early detection to allow sufficient time for launching interceptors.

The IDF tries to detect any incoming drones on its radar, as it had done prior to the war. Despite Hizballah’s learning curve, the IDF’s technological edge offers an advantage. However, the military must recognize that any measure it takes is quickly observed and analyzed, and even the most effective defenses can be incomplete. The terrain near the Lebanon-Israel border continues to pose a challenge, necessitating technological solutions and significant financial investment.