West Bank attack leaves Israeli security scrambling
The bewildering lone wolf attack at the West Bank Barkan Industrial Zone defied the pattern of terrorist behavior that Israel’s security forces have come to expect.
The Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet have spent the last four days in a giant manhunt for Ashraf Na'alowa, the Palestinian assailant behind one of the harshest terror attacks Israel has seen in recent months. The IDF co-opted two infantry units for the manhunt in addition to existing forces in the area and the brigade stationed in the region. IDF intelligence has also been working overtime, employing drones, collection units, the army’s canine unit and other special units. The Shin Bet, which is supposed to know if a stone is moved from one place to another in the West Bank, is pushing its agents hard and using every means at its disposal to track Na'alowa. Even the Palestinian Authority security apparatus has joined the efforts as, according to a high-placed Israeli military source who spoke to Al-Monitor, the Palestinians also want him to be caught promptly before he carries out another attack.
Yet despite all the effort, the man has vanished. Na'alowa, a resident of Shuweika near Tulkarem, apparently does not belong to any terror organization, is not connected to any military infrastructure and has no network of collaborators or hiding places set up in advance. Still, he has so far managed to elude his pursuers, who are still trying to understand what impelled him to carry out the Oct. 7 attack, one of the most unusual that Israel has seen.
The attack casts a dark shadow on Israel’s security policy in the West Bank over recent years. This policy was dictated by Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot, previous Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Gen. Yoav Mordechai and the Shin Bet. It was based on one factual premise: that almost no Palestinian with an Israeli work permit has ever carried out a terror attack. It allowed the security system to convince the political echelons (importantly the ultra-right-wing cabinet) to maintain the texture of daily Palestinian life, their freedom of movement and the issuing of work permits to tens of thousands of them who leave home every morning to work in Israel or the settlements.
This premise helped the IDF to curb the wave of individual attacks that erupted in October 2015 and prevent it from igniting into a true intifada. The IDF and the Shin Bet were careful to differentiate between isolated terrorists and the general Palestinian population that was not involved in these attacks and avoided inflicting harm on those who were not directly connected to the violence. This policy served to calm the territory and prevent the violence from spreading, as its authors had hoped it would. Then Na'alowa showed up one fine Sunday morning at 7:30 to the Alon waste recycling plant in the Barkan Industrial Park, ready for his shift in a factory where he had worked for many long months. Why would anyone suspect that an improvised Carl Gustav submachine gun was hidden in the large backpack he carried?
