Shin Bet Director Nadav Argaman made it clear to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee last month that the apparent state of calm in the West Bank is nothing more than an illusion. “The situation is very complex,” he explained. “On the surface it appears as if there’s relative calm, but this quiet is deceptive, because beneath the surface tensions are increasingly simmering.” According to Argaman, Hamas is doing everything it can to launch attacks from the West Bank, directing them from Gaza, Turkey and Lebanon. Going in to greater detail, Argaman added, "Over the past year, we were able to thwart 480 terror attacks, including 219 Hamas cells and 590 lone attackers. This is a very large number that is indicative of the terrorism bubbling under the surface."
Just one month later, the West Bank is giving clear indications that we are standing on the threshold of a new wave of violence, with each attack encouraging the next assailant. On Thursday two soldiers were killed in a shooting at the Givat Asaf intersection near the settlement of Ofra, and two others, a soldier and a civilian, were seriously injured. Earlier that day, two border patrol officers were injured in a stabbing attack in the Old City of Jerusalem, while another soldier sustained light injuries in a vehicular attack near the settlement of Kochav Yaakov. Earlier that week, seven people were injured in a shooting at the entrance to the settlement of Ofra. They included Shira Ish-Ran and her husband; Shira Ish-Ran was seven months pregnant. The doctors treating her were forced to perform an emergency delivery, but the baby died four days later.
Since September, there have been 14 attacks and attempted attacks throughout the West Bank and Jerusalem. “This wave of terrorism is not simply the result of the sense of frustration and desperation that Palestinians in the West Bank feel. It also has other, very complicated components and motives,” a senior Israeli security source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity.
He says that the first and probably the main reason is that Hamas wants to move the armed conflict from Gaza to the West Bank. As the Shin Bet director said last month, it may be directed most immediately from the Gaza Strip, but the guiding hands are in Turkey and Lebanon. In other words, the fingerprints of the deputy director of the Hamas' political bureau Saleh al-Arouri are all over it.
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