Between June 26 and August 15, there were eight cases where terrorists in the Samarian city of Jenin launched rockets at Israeli communities. None of the rockets harmed persons or property, but there is reason to worry that future efforts will be more successful. Uzi Rubin traces the development of Hamas’s rocket arsenal in Gaza from simple, homemade projectiles built from easy-to-acquire items, to military rockets smuggled from Iran, to sophisticated, locally manufactured weapons that can hit targets anywhere in Israel and carry large payloads. With this progression in mind, he considers the situation in the West Bank:

Presently, the terrorist organizations’ capabilities in the Jenin district are more or less equivalent to Gaza’s capabilities in the early 2000s, namely the capacity to manufacture simple rockets in the private machine shops in Jenin and other Palestinian communities. Israel would like to return the genie to the bottle somehow—that is, to roll back even this rudimentary rocket production capability. Judging by the Gaza precedent, this seems nearly impossible. As noted above, even the presence of IDF boots on the ground inside Gaza could not prevent the terrorists there from producing a limited amount of simple, kitchen-made yet lethal rockets.

In the case of Gaza, the transition from the first to the second phase of the threat—from locally home-produced rockets to imported military-grade rockets—happened when the IDF had already vacated the Gaza Strip. In contrast, the IDF maintains a significant presence in Samaria. It stands to reason that once smuggled military-grade rockets become known, the IDF will act energetically to block the smuggling routes and shut down depots and launching pits inside the Palestinian cities.

It is not inconceivable that the terrorists and their Iranian sponsors might aspire to move directly from Phase 1 to Phase 3, from kitchen-grade rockets to producing quality, long-range rockets in advanced production lines manned by well-trained local operators. [But], if the IDF maintains its military presence in the West Bank, it can be assumed that the Palestinian efforts to set up a rocket industry will be met by energetic Israeli efforts to frustrate the enterprise.

Yesterday, the Iranian foreign minister flew to Geneva to meet with European diplomats. President Trump, meanwhile, indicated that cease-fire negotiations might soon begin with Iran, which would presumably involve Tehran agreeing to make concessions regarding its nuclear program, while Washington pressures Israel to halt its military activities. According to Israeli media, Iran already began putting out feelers to the U.S. earlier this week. Aviram Bellaishe considers the purpose of these overtures:

The regime’s request to return to negotiations stems from the principle of deception and delay that has guided it for decades. Iran wants to extricate itself from a situation of total destruction of its nuclear facilities. It understands that to save the nuclear program, it must stop at a point that would allow it to return to it in the shortest possible time. So long as the negotiation process leads to halting strikes on its military capabilities and preventing the destruction of the nuclear program, and enables the transfer of enriched uranium to a safe location, it can simultaneously create the two tracks in which it specializes—a false facade of negotiations alongside a hidden nuclear race.