On Saturday, the eighteen-year-old Israeli soldier Noa Lazar was shot dead at a checkpoint in eastern Jerusalem. Another soldier, Ido Baruch, was killed on Tuesday. Although Hamas “blessed” the first attack, it did not claim responsibility for it; meanwhile, the Shin Bet broke up one of the group’s West Bank cells yesterday. Ron Ben-Yishai puts these attacks in the context of a seven-month-long wave of terrorism, fueled by social media and declining faith in both the established terrorist groups and the Palestinian Authority:

Saturday’s terror attack matches what came to be known as the “TikTok intifada.” Most of the attacks in recent weeks were carried out by Palestinians aged thirty and younger and primarily targeted Israeli security forces.

The Lions’ Den, a new Palestinian terror group is an example. Several local young criminals obtained firearms, carried out attacks, and became a source of inspiration and imitation to other young Palestinians. And when interrogated by Shin Bet, they often admit they didn’t act out of ideological, political, or religious motives, but rather from the desire to become social-media stars.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad are not leading the ongoing terror wave; instead, they incite and fund it directly and indirectly, while sitting on the sidelines and enjoying the fruits of terror.

Unlike previous escalations in the West Bank, flooding the region with IDF soldiers won’t dispirit the Palestinian youth from carrying out attacks. . . . On the other hand, there is some truth to the claim that if the IDF were to halt its daily operations and nighttime raids, Palestinian militants—who have already experienced clashes with security forces—will not lay down their weapons. Instead, they will seek confrontation with Israeli security forces in other places, such as checkpoints, the West Bank border barrier, and other flashpoints.

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.