A Recent Shooting Is a Reminder of the Constant Threat of West Bank Terror

Monday night, a Palestinian terrorist opened fire at a bus stop in the Israeli town of Ofra, wounding seven people, including a pregnant woman whose baby, despite doctors’ heroic efforts, died yesterday morning. Just two months ago, a terrorist succeeded in killing two Israelis in the Barkan industrial zone. Yoav Limor writes that these attacks don’t reflect an “uptick” in terror but an ongoing problem:

On a nightly basis, dozens of army and police teams, mainly under the direction of the Shin Bet security agency, operate to thwart terrorist attacks. From the beginning of the year until Tuesday morning, over 530 significant terrorist attacks—bombs, abductions, car-rammings, stabbings, shootings—have been prevented, and more than 4,000 Palestinians have been detained. During this period, ten Israelis were murdered and 76 wounded in Judea and Samaria.

By comparison, although the northern and the southern sectors have occupied the most attention these past two months, [they have borne a much smaller death toll]. There have not been any casualties along the borders with Lebanon and Syria, while in the Gaza sector two IDF officers have been killed and a Palestinian living in Ashkelon was killed by a Hamas rocket attack.

While the potential for a dangerous escalation in the north and south is considerably greater, in Judea and Samaria the routine is one of consistent bloodshed. It is barely news when Molotov cocktails and stones are thrown at IDF troops, and localized clashes—some of them admittedly instigated by radical [Jewish] elements in the settlement movement—are hardly noticed. . . .

Hamas, via its headquarters in Gaza and Turkey, is investing tremendous energy in carrying out attacks. While the terrorist group has sought to reduce the flames in Gaza, it wants to ignite a powder keg in Judea and Samaria. To this end, it is trying to exploit a situation that is already unstable for numerous reasons: the lack of a successor to the Palestinian Authority’s President Mahmoud Abbas, the stalled peace process, economic frustrations. . . . There will always be that one cell or lone terrorist who sneaks through the cracks.

Read more at Israel Hayom

More about: Hamas, Israel & Zionism, Israeli Security, Palestinian terror, West Bank

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF