On Sunday, gunmen fired on Israeli troops in a West Bank village; on Thursday Palestinian terrorists shot at a car carrying yeshiva students, killing one and injuring two others. These events come on the heels of several attacks, and attempted attacks, in the past few weeks. Yossi Kuperwasser looks at what’s behind them:

The recent uptick in terrorist attacks in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria necessitates distinguishing between two parallel tracks that underpin the violence. One is the ongoing incitement, intended to create a consciousness of struggle in the general public, particularly among Palestinian youth. The second is Hamas’s interest in increasing terrorism within, and emanating from, Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria. The connection between the tangible expressions of these two trends has ignited a multitude of attacks and has unleashed fears that Israel is facing another wave of terrorist attacks.

This effort is also not new and is a permanent part of Hamas’s and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s policy aimed at harming as many Israelis as possible, [attempting to] undermine national resilience in Israel, and demonstrating these movements’ adherence to “the path of struggle,” in contrast to Fatah, while they refrain from acting from Gaza and igniting another war.

Although the [Fatah-led] Palestinian Authority works to limit Hamas’s freedom of action, it is being dragged by the competition into increasing incitement, heaping praise on the perpetrators of the attacks, and accusing Israel of executing the terrorists killed during the attacks. Thus, the Palestinian Authority itself is guilty of fanning the flames and leading more terrorists to decide that it is time to act.

Surveying news websites and social media on Sunday morning, I immediately found some intelligent and well-informed observers arguing that Iran deliberately warned the U.S. of its pending assault on Israel, and calibrated it so that there would be few casualties and minimal destructiveness, thus hoping to avoid major retaliation. In other words, this massive barrage was a face-saving gesture by the ayatollahs. Others disagreed. Brian Carter and Frederick W. Kagan put the issue to rest:

The Iranian April 13 missile-drone attack on Israel was very likely intended to cause significant damage below the threshold that would trigger a massive Israeli response. The attack was designed to succeed, not to fail. The strike package was modeled on those the Russians have used repeatedly against Ukraine to great effect. The attack caused more limited damage than intended likely because the Iranians underestimated the tremendous advantages Israel has in defending against such strikes compared with Ukraine.

But that isn’t to say that Tehran achieved nothing:

The lessons that Iran will draw from this attack will allow it to build more successful strike packages in the future. The attack probably helped Iran identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Israeli air-defense system. Iran will likely also share the lessons it learned in this attack with Russia.

Iran’s ability to penetrate Israeli air defenses with even a small number of large ballistic missiles presents serious security concerns for Israel. The only Iranian missiles that got through hit an Israeli military base, limiting the damage, but a future strike in which several ballistic missiles penetrate Israeli air defenses and hit Tel Aviv or Haifa could cause significant civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, including ports and energy. . . . Israel and its partners should not emerge from this successful defense with any sense of complacency.