The West Bank and Settlements 4

Updated October 21, 2024

CIA Director meets Abbas

CIA Director William Burns, returning from a trip which included meetings with Israeli officials and with Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas, has said he fears that current Israeli-Palestinian violence echoes the pattern of the Second Intifada.

“I was a senior US diplomat 20 years ago during the Second Intifada,” said Burns, “and I’m concerned – as are my colleagues in the intelligence community – that a lot of what we’re seeing today has a very unhappy resemblance to some of those realities that we saw then too.”
Meanwhile, five terrorists were confirmed killed in an IDF raid targeting members of a cell affiliated with Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades in the Aqabat Jaber refugee camp, near Jericho, on Monday.
Troops entered the camp in pursuit of cell members believed to have carried out an attempted attack in Vered Yeriho, near the Almog junction, on January 28th, following which Israeli forces tightened restrictions around Jericho.
The Shin Bet and IDF Intelligence Directorate discovered that those responsible were in an apartment in the camp and planning further attacks.
Having identified the apartment, troops came under fire and responded in kind, killing gunmen, all of whom are thought to have belonged to the cell.
Troops also discovered a significant and sophisticated arsenal of weapons, many of which – including rifles equipped with sniper scopes, Carlo submachine guns, and pistols – are comparable with the IDF’s own weapons.
The targets of the mission having been killed, forces then withdrew from the camp in the face of hundreds of locals, some of them armed.
No Israeli casualties were reported, while Palestinian media shared footage of a seemingly downed Israeli Sky Rider drone.
The raid also netted the arrest of senior Hamas official Shaker Amara, as well as relatives of the Vered Yeriho attackers.
Yesterday, Israeli officials indicated their belief that a car which exploded in Jenin in Monday evening was a prematurely detonated car bomb planned for use in an attack in revenge for the Jericho mission.
In separate incidents, a 17-year-old member of the Lion’s Den terrorist group was killed during clashes with Israeli forces in Nablus on Tuesday, while 22 Palestinians were also arrested in the village of Burkin, west of Jenin. This follows the arrest by Israeli forces on Sunday of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader Khader Adnan in the village of Arrabeh, near Jenin, on Sunday.
Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem predicted that the Jericho raid would “fuel a revolution” amongst Palestinians.

The Hamas Jericho cell, calling itself the Aqabat Jaber Battalion, is a new phenomenon, with the Vered Yeriho incident indicating an escalation in a city previously noted for its relative quiet.

Last Saturday, the Aqabat Jaber Battalion publicly announced itself with a local parade and public statement.
Monday’s IDF mission followed a previous raid targeting members of the cell last Saturday, in which at least 13 Palestinians were injured.
While several arrests of cell members were secured in that mission, those responsible for the Vered Yeriho attack were not among them.
In response to Saturday’s raid, the Aqabat Jaber Battalion announced a “days of rage” period, encouraging locals to initiate conflict with Israeli troops. “Let us all make them days of fire against the occupation,” a statement said, calling on Palestinians to “pour out their anger against the occupation.”
In the attempted attack on January 28th, four members of the cell travelling in two cars sought to open fire close to a restaurant but fled when one of their M-16 rifles jammed.
The gun failure averted what could have been a major terrorist attack, with over 30 people dining in the restaurant at the time.
While the past year has seen multiple Israeli raids into the West Bank, as part of Operation Breakwater, such operations have tended to target unaffiliated individual suspects or else localised militia independent (at least formally) from both the Palestinian Authority’s dominant Fatah faction and Hamas. An operation targeting such a well-resourced Hamas cell inside the West Bank is therefore unusual.
The location of the raid is also significant. Jericho, in the PA-run Area A has previously been considered a place of comparative quiet and relatively secure PA control. Such a significant Hamas base of operations, together with Israel’s assessment that its neutralising required a unilateral operation, provide further proof of the decline in the PA’s influence in the West Bank and its ability to be considered a reliable security partner.
The PA also opted to suspend formal security cooperation with Israel in the wake of the IDF’s raid in Jenin on January 27th, though informal cooperation is known to have been ongoing since then.
The operation was notable for being conducted not by one of the IDF units usually designated with such a mission, but by its gender-integrated Lions of the Jordan Valley Battalion, formed in 2014.
The chief of the military’s Central Command, Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fuchs, commended the “commanders and troops who led the battle” as “an example of professionalism and leadership.” The operation will doubtless signify an important endorsement of mixed battalions at a time when they are under fire from ultra-Orthodox political figures.
Egypt has continued mediation between Israel and the Palestinian factions. On Saturday, PIJ Secretary-General Ziyad al-Nakhaleh met in Cairo with Abbas Kamel, Director of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate to discuss recent violence, especially in the PIJ stronghold of Jenin, while Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is due to arrive in Cairo shortly.

Israel is braced for a violent response from Hamas.

With several members of the cell killed or arrested, quiet from Jericho might reveal that Hamas’s presence in the city has been fatally degraded.

January 29, 2023

Attack in Neve Yaakov

Attack in Neve Yaakov: Seven people were killed and at least three others injured in a shooting attack near the Ateret Avraham synagogue in Jerusalem’s Neve Yaakov neighbourhood on Friday evening.

Five victims were declared dead at the scene and another two succumbed to injuries after reaching local hospitals.
The shooter was later named as Alqam Khayri, 21, an East Jerusalemite with no prior record of terror activity.
Khayri arrived at the busy synagogue, around the end of Shabbat evening prayers. He first shot an elderly woman in the street before beginning shooting at worshipers emerging from the Synagogue. He then fled the scene by car and headed for the nearby Arab neighbourhood of Beit Hanina. When faced with police officers, Khayri opened fire before being shot dead.
Security officials told the Walla news site that Khayri had displayed considerable skill with a weapon and that they were investigating the possibility that he had received training.

The aftermath: On Saturday, Israeli police arrested over 40 of Khayri’s friends, acquaintances, and family members.

Meanwhile, widespread celebrations were seen in the Gaza Strip and in several West Bank cities, including Ramallah, Nablus and Jenin.
A second shooting attack occurred on Saturday morning. An Israeli father and son, were said to be in a serious but stable condition after being shot near the Old City of Jerusalem. The Palestinian attacker, who was shot and wounded was identified as a 13-year-old Muhammad Aliyat.
There were two more attempted shooting attacks later on Saturday: One at Almog junction close to Jericho, where the assailants gun jammed, and a second attack thwarted at the entrance to the settlement of Kedumim.
US President Joe Biden called Netanyahu on Friday night. “The president made clear that this was an attack against the civilised world,” and “stressed the ironclad US commitment to Israel’s security,” the White House revealed.
Statements of support were also forthcoming from other Israeli allies including the UK and the UAE. A Jordanian statement condemned the attack but also included a thinly-veiled criticism of the Jenin operation.
Organisers of the anti-government protests on Saturday night decided that the demonstrations would begin with a minute’s silence for the victims of the terror attacks and would avoid the playing of music.

The Security Cabinet convened on Saturday night and announced a series of measures including:
- “National insurance rights and additional benefits for the families of terrorists that support terrorism will be revoked.”
- “Legislation on the revocation of Israeli identity cards of the families of terrorists that support terrorism will be discussed at tomorrow’s Government meeting.”
- “Firearm licensing will be expedited and expanded in order to enable thousands of additional citizens to carry weapons.”
- “In response to the abhorrent attacks and the celebrations in their wake, Prime Minister Netanyahu has decided on steps to strengthen settlement that will be submitted this week.”
Police also fear potential price tag revenge attacks against Arab Israelis. Prime Minister Netanyahu appealed for restraint in his immediate comments. “Our hearts are with the families,” he said. “I commend the police officers who took action so quickly. We must act with determination and composure. I call on people not to take the law into their own hands.”
On Sunday morning the mapping and sealing of Khayri’s home was expediated ahead of its demolition.
Five people remain hospitalised but in stable condition following the two attacks in Jerusalem.

The death toll of seven makes the Neve Yaakov attack the deadliest suffered by Israel since 2011, and the costliest Palestinian-perpetrated attack since 2008, when an East Jerusalemite terrorist killed eight Israelis at the city’s Mercaz Harav yeshiva.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, though Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad praised it as a response to Friday’s IDF raid in Jenin in which nine Palestinians, including seven combatants, were killed.
The first intifada (late 1980s) was characterised as a popular uprising and the second (from 2000) was notable for being led by organised terror organisations. This latest period which began in March 2022 has neither of those features and is led by localised cells and ‘lone wolf’ attackers.
Security experts are divided over the effectiveness of swift demolitions of terrorist homes; whether this disincentives future attacks or encourages them.
Since last March there have been several deadly terror attacks that have resulted in 30 Israelis killed. In the same period 150 Palestinians have also been killed, though over 90% were engaged in some form of combat.
The second attack’s perpetrator being a thirteen-year-old child is particularly shocking, both as testimony to his exposure to incitement and indoctrination as well as his ease of access to an illegal weapon.

The immediate period following lone wolf attacks is one of the most tense, as in the past deadly attacks have served as increased motivation for copycat attacks.

Kobi Shabtai, Israel’s police commissioner, ordered officers from the elite Yamam counterterrorism unit to deploy to Jerusalem after the two attacks.
IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, meanwhile, ordered extra troops to be stationed in the West Bank and along its security fence.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is due to arrive in Israel on Monday. Yesterday he said, “We mourn those killed in the attack, and our thoughts are with the injured, including children. The notion of people being targeted as they leave a house of worship is abhorrent.”

December 16, 2022

300 Palestinians arrested over alleged Hamas affiliation

Reports suggest around 300 Palestinians with alleged Hamas affiliation were arrested in the West Bank this week .

The arrests have been interpreted both as a sign of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) insecurity over its weakening authority in the West Bank and as an effort to persuade the US and international community that it still remains in control.
Senior Hamas official Hussam Badran called the arrests a “stab in the back of the Palestinian national unity.”
While according to Lior Ackerman, senior fellow at the Institute for Policy and Strategy, Reichman University, “The PA of the end of 2022 is an entity without governance, very weak and lacking any vision or leadership strategy.”
According to the Palestinian Lawyers for Justice group, PA security forces have arrested or summoned for interrogation more than 500 Palestinian activists since the beginning of the year.
Also this week, Relatives of the Palestinian activist Nizar Banat announced that they are to file a case against Mahmoud Abbas’s PA at the International Criminal Court (ICC) over his death.
Banat, a long-time critic of the PA and Abbas, died following his arrest by Palestinian forces in June 2021. An autopsy showed he had suffered extensive beating.
Fourteen members of the PA security services were arrested over the incident, before being released on bail earlier this year.
The family’s case – which the ICC is not obliged to agree to hear – accuses seven PA figures of responsibility for Banat’s death.
It represents the first time the court has been presented with a case filed by Palestinians against Palestinians.
Hamas marked its 35th anniversary celebrations. Addressing the crowd remotely, Hamas’ military commander Mohammed al-Deif criticised the PA’s policy of security cooperation with Israel and called instead for support for the Lions’ Den group in Nablus, the Balata Brigades, and militia in Jenin with which Israel has been engaged in regular operations.
Yehiyeh Sinwar, Hamas’ leader in Gaza said, “We have to give the chance to ignite the resistance in the West Bank.”
At the same event, Hamas displayed what it claimed was the assault rifle of Hadar Goldin, the Givati Brigade soldier killed in Gaza, along with his colleague Oron Shaul, during Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
Hamas retains both soldiers’ bodies and is also believed to be holding captive two Israelis: Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, both missing since crossing the border into Gaza in 2014 and 2015 respectively.
Sinwar also used his remarks to warn Israel that the window was rapidly closing for it to negotiate the return of Goldin and Shaul’s bodies.
In parallel the IDF this week also disclosed evidence of three rocket sites close to schools in Gaza City. According to their intelligence, staff at the Mo’ath Bin Jabal, the Khalil Al Nobani Secondary Female, and the Al-Furqan Public Schools were working in collaboration with Hamas.
An IDF statement said that the revelation provided further proof that Hamas ” uses the residents of the Gaza Strip, and in these cases innocent children, as human protectors.”

The week’s events show remaining hostility between Fatah and Hamas.

The events call into question the October reconciliation agreement, signed in Algeria by both Hamas and Fatah, designed to lessen conflict between the PA and Hamas.
Some Palestinian analysts speculated that Abbas had deliberately sought to sabotage the reconciliation talks.
Whilst the last few months have seen an increase in Israeli operations in the West Bank, relative quiet has prevailed on the Gazan front. However, in early December the IDF hit Hamas sites in Gaza in response to a single rocket fire directed at Southern Israel.
Although the rockets were thought to have been fired not by Hamas but by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Israel followed its policy of holding Hamas responsible for all terror emanating from Gaza.
Latest polling from the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) showed declining support for Abbas, with his decree forming a high council for the judiciary under his own control proving particularly unpopular.
Palestinian satisfaction (both West Bank and Gaza) with Abbas’s leadership was at 23%.
Other headline numbers from the poll showed substantial support for armed factions rival to the PA – 72% were in favour of independent groups like Lion’s Den.

The further erosion of PA control, together with increasing local popularity and Iranian support could see West Bank militias continue operations against Israelis, leading in turn to further Israeli raids in the West Bank under “Operation Breakwater”.

With Palestinian elections remaining a distant prospect, and with no clear succession plan for the 87-year-old Abbas, political disunity amongst the Palestinians is likely to continue.
Hamas deputy chief Khalil al-Hayya recently suggested that Algeria was set to host another series of reconciliation talks at the end of December.
Hamas’s failure to return the bodies of Goldin and Shaul make it unlikely that Israel will relax the opening of Gaza to humanitarian supplies and other material.

December 9, 2022

Counter-terror raid in Jenin yesterday

What happened? Three suspected Palestinian militants were killed during an Israeli counter-terrorism raid in a refugee camp in the West Bank city of Jenin yesterday.

The IDF said that its forces entered the camp to arrest terrorist suspect Khaled a-Hija when its troops came under “accurate fire” and responded in kind.
The local wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) later claimed responsibility for engaging Israeli troops with gunfire and explosives.
The dead have been named as Sidqi Zakarneh and Tariq al-Damej, both 29, and Atta Shalabi, 46
Khaled a-Hija was apprehended, as were suspects Ahmad Jaradat and Daajef Bages in other raids in Jenin.
The IDF confirmed that forces also conducted separate counter-terrorism raids in Bethlehem and in the West Bank towns of Abu Dis, Bitut, Silwad, Anata, Ein, Nabi Saleh, and Bayt Rima.
Further suspects were arrested in Hebron, Ramallah, Mahafiaa, Jabal Shamali and Bayt Furik, and illegal vehicles confiscated in the towns of Yata and Khirbet Carme.
Near the West Bank village of Aboud, 16-year-old Diaa Muhammad Shafiq al-Rimawi died in an incident in which the IDF says its troops opened fire after stones and bottles of paint were thrown at them.
Elsewhere in Jenin, troops arrested the father of Moujahid Mahmoud Hamed, who died after firing on an IDF post near the settlement of Ofra on Wednesday.
The IDF reported that no injuries to its troops were sustained during the various operations.

Jenin, in the Palestinian Authority-controlled Area A, has long been regarded as a hotbed of militant activity and is a frequent flashpoint for clashes between militants and the IDF.

Yesterday’s events echo similar incidents last week in which troops returned fire after being fired upon during an arrest raid in the city. Members of both PIJ and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade were killed.
These incidents follow further fatal West Bank clashes between Palestinians and the IDF in the last month, including in Beit Ummar near Hebron, and in Beit Rima and Al-Mughayyir, both near Ramallah.
The past year has seen a significant increase in both Palestinian terrorism and Israeli counter-terrorism operations in the West Bank.
The period has seen over 280 terror attacks (up from 91 in 2021), claiming the lives of 30 Israelis.
GazaHaving long armed and supported both Hamas and PIJ in Gaza, Iran has turned greater attention to growing the capacity and influence of proxies in the West Bank in the last 12 months.
PIJ in the West Bank has received significant funding from Tehran, which it has used to establish a series of local battalions whose personnel includes members of other, ostensibly rival, Palestinian factions.
Late November saw the first bomb attacks in Israel since 2016, with explosives in two locations near the entrance to Jerusalem claiming the lives of two Israelis.
In the face of this increase in what the IDF terms “popular terrorism” emanating from the territory, it has responded with “Operation Breakwater”.
3,000 arrests have been carried out and over 500 attacks thwarted, according to Israeli Military Intelligence.
Analysts estimate that around half of the IDF’s troop resources are currently allocated to addressing West Bank threats.
Some 150 Palestinians have been killed, the majority during clashes with the IDF.
There has also been a significant rise in nationalist-motivated crime by right-wing Israelis against Palestinians.

Despite ongoing security coordination between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the pattern of the past year points to the latter’s declining authority in the West Bank.

Its policies of formal opposition to armed resistance and cooperation with Israel security are said to be reducing the Authority’s already waning popular appeal.
On Wednesday Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued a statement affirming, though with caveats, his commitment to these policies.
“Security coordination is a part of the agreements. When it comes to security coordination our approach is to fight terrorism no matter where,” Abbas said. “I do not support armed Palestinian resistance, but that could change. It could change — tomorrow, the next day or some other time. Everything changes.”
The influence of Hamas, PIJ, and other armed groups, meanwhile, continues to grow.
The impact of the likely appointments of far-right figures Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir to portfolios with authority over civilian administration in the West Bank and the West Bank Border Police, respectively, remains to be seen. Outgoing Defence Minister Benny Gantz recently warned of the chances of an even greater escalation accompanying Ben Gvir’s appointment.

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