Hamas shifts West Bank strategy
Desperate Hamas has changed its strategy and is now increasing its involvement in planning terror attacks against Israelis in the West Bank.
Numerous troops from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the police counterterrorism unit raided Jenin overnight on Jan. 17 with the aim of catching the terror cell that murdered Rabbi Raziel Shevach, a resident of the West Bank outpost Havat Gilad, on Jan. 9. The police force surrounded the house where one of the terrorists, Ahmed Jarrar, a Hamas operative, was thought to be hiding. Jarrar’s father, Nasser Jarrar, was a senior member of Hamas’ military arm in the West Bank and was killed by the IDF during the second intifada in 2002.
About 24 hours after the operation, it turned out that Jarrar escaped unscathed. However, the information that reached the Shin Bet about the perpetrators of the attack was quite focused. Thus, it seems that security cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) continues. The investigation of the attack proceeded after a burned vehicle, which was thought to have been used by the terror cell, was discovered in the Jenin area in territory under Palestinian security responsibility, which led to the identification of the cell.
In response to the IDF’s action in Jenin, Hamas harshly attacked the PA’s security cooperation with Israel. Sami Abu Zohri, Hamas' veteran spokesman in Gaza, called it "the criminal security cooperation" and "the Jenin cell," promising that attacks against Israel will continue.
Adnan al-Damiri, the spokesman of the Palestinian security forces, told Al-Monitor that Israel’s location of the cell was not the result of security cooperation and that “cooperation has ceased.”
