Although the election is less than two months away, politics hasn’t completely knocked security developments out of the headlines. Incidents on the Syrian front – exchanges of threats that occasionally lead to exchanges of fire between Israel and the Iranian and Hezbollah forces – are getting the most attention. But the biggest risk of a major eruption of violence in the lead-up to the election is still in the south, in Gaza.

The IDF military intelligence assessment for 2019 includes, as it has for the past two years, a strategic warning about a deterioration on the Palestinian front. Shifts in the internal power relations in the Palestinian Authority and in the security relationship with Israel, in light of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ 83 years of age and expected decline, could lead to an escalation of terror from the West Bank and even to a wider confrontation. In Gaza, the ongoing severe crisis involving the civilian infrastructure continues to put pressure on the Hamas government and could push it into another clash with Israel, despite the understanding (that has become a cliché by now) that neither Israel nor Hamas is interested in a full-scale war.

Read More at Haaretz.