Israel has been torn in half for the past ten days over the soldier who took the law into his own hands and shot and killed a wounded Palestinian March 24 in Hebron after the latter had already been neutralized. The country is divided into two warring factions furiously arguing. The vast majority of the public, along with a group of agitated right-wing politicians, have been verbally attacking Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot and the entire IDF senior command. The military establishment has determined that the soldier’s actions were in breach of IDF values and has opened a criminal investigation against him.

Amid this chaos, one encouraging development has almost been overlooked: The wave of Palestinian “individual attacks” that began in October 2015 is receding. According to Shin Bet data, the numbers speak for themselves: there were 609 attacks in October, 322 in November, 239 in December, 166 in January, 153 in February, and about 115 in March. The attacks in March were less than a fifth of those in October. This is not a widespread uprising of large swathes of the Palestinian public but a local “eruption” of Palestinian Generation Y, an upheaval that has long since peaked.

Nevertheless, the IDF and Shin Bet are far from resting on their laurels. “The situation is dangerous,” said Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon behind closed doors, according to senior security official who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “A flare-up can take place at any given moment, although we are succeeding in containing events and finding a way to lower the level of violence to a minimum.”

To date, 32 Israelis, one foreign national, a Palestinian from Hebron and about 250 Palestinian attackers have been killed. The terror wave has involved about 100 stabbings, some 70 shooting incidents and about 20 vehicular attacks.

Read the article in full at Al-Monitor.