The West Bank – A Ticking Time Bomb

Over the last two years, the terror threat emanating from the northern governorates of the West Bank has steadily increased. The various Palestinian terror organizations – chief of them Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and Fatah's military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade – are consolidating their presence in the various governorates, while undermining the control and the rule of the Palestinian Authority (PA) there. As part of this, they are establishing infrastructure for terror and armed struggle against Israel, with Iranian assistance, and openly declaring their intention to fight Israel and even to carry out attacks on Israeli localities similar to Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack in southern Israel.

MEMRI has warned, as early as last year,[1] that the West Bank terror organizations are working to adopt the Gazan model of combat against Israel, in three ways:

1. Through ongoing efforts to arm the West Bank, including by developing a local arms industry capable of manufacturing advanced weapons and explosive devices, and by smuggling in munitions with the help of Iran;

2. By digging tunnels and firing rockets;

3. Through military cooperation between all the terror organizations involved in fighting Israel, following the example of the joint operations room active in Gaza. 

A prominent expression of the effort to replicate the Gaza combat model in the West Bank is the cooperation between the various terror groups fighting Israel. Almost every governorate in the northern West Bank now has a joint militia comprising militants from different Palestinian terror groups who work together and operate against Israel side by side. Such militias include the Lion's Den, based in the Nablus Old City; the Jenin Brigade, operating out of Jenin; the Tubas Brigade in the town of Tubas, and the Tulkarm Brigade, based mainly in that city's refugee camps. Reports indicate that similar militias are also forming in Jericho and elsewhere.  Each of these militias comprises dozens of operatives from various Palestinian factions who devote all their time and energy to arming and trying to carry out multiple attacks against Israelis.

The emergence of these militias at this time is not a coincidence, but is the outcome of calculated and systematic planning by the terror factions, as they themselves admit. Hamas and PIJ officials have praised this model, of uniting militants from different factions into single militias, and stressed that they aim to expand it to all the West bank cities. 

Moreover, the effort to arm the Wrest Bank is taking place with extensive assistance from Iran, in accordance with the directives of its Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, who in fact issued these instructions as long as a decade ago. Officials in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) have announced on several occasions that they are implementing his directives,[2] and Hamas and PIJ officials often thank Iran for its military assistance,[3]  which includes the smuggling into the West Bank of powerful explosive devices manufactured in Iran.[4]

The PA, for its part, openly accuses Iran of acting to overthrow it by arming Hamas and the PIJ in the West Bank and guiding their activity against the PA itself, with the ultimate goal of staging a military coup. These accusations have intensified recently, amid the numerous weapon shipments brought into the West Bank with Iranian funding, and the armed clashes that have taken place between the PA security apparatuses and operatives of the Iran-backed Hamas and PIJ.

At the same time, the PA evidently engages in doublespeak regarding the terror militias that are gaining strength of the in various parts of the West Bank. On the one hand, it tries to arrest operatives of these militias in an attempt to establish its authority and security control. But on the other hand, it continues to publicly express support for their terror activity, to incite against Israel and to accuse Israel of targeting innocent Palestinian civilians without reason when the individuals targeted are in fact armed members of the militias. Moreover, the recent years have seen many terror attacks carried out by members of the PA apparatuses themselves.

Concurrently, Hamas and the other terror organizations continue to incite the people of the West Bank to rise up and fight Israel. Using social media, especially Telegram, as a convenient platform for this incitement, they urge the locals to carry out shooting, stabbing or car-ramming attacks.

The growing strength of the terror militias in the northern West Bank, along with the increase in terror coming out of these areas and in the level of the threats and incitement,  all pose a clear danger to the many Israeli localities adjacent to these areas, and turn the West Bank into a ticking time bomb.

For previous MEMRI reports on the terror threat emanating from the West Bank, see:

MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 1661 - Palestinian Authority Responds To Violence Wave In Two Conflicting Ways: Tries To Restrain West Bank Gunmen, While Also Encouraging Them And Inciting Terror – October 21, 2022

Special Dispatch No. 10721 - Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) Secretary-General Ziad Al-Nakhaleh In Interviews With Iranian Media: We Manufacture Weapons Thanks To Aid Provided By Iran And Seek To Arm All West Bank Cities; No Jew Anywhere In The World Lives In Greater Danger Than The Jews In Palestine – July 24, 2023

Inquiry & Analysis Series No. 1707 - Palestinian Terror Organizations Are Duplicating Gaza Strip Fighting Methods In West Bank – August 8, 2023

Inquiry & Analysis Series No. 1709 - Palestinian Authority Acts To Strengthen Its Control Of West Bank Amid Growing Power Of Terror Organizations, Fears Of Gaza-Style Coup – August 14, 2023

MEMRI Daily Brief No. 517 - Signs Of Possible War In September-October – August 31, 2023

Special Dispatch No. 10788 - Palestinian Terror Organizations Incite On Social Media: The Time Has Come To Kill The Jews – September 12, 2023

Special Dispatch No. 10793, Saleh Al-'Arouri, Deputy Head Of Hamas' Political Bureau Killed Yesterday In Beirut, In September 2023 Interview Translated By MEMRI: Developing The Resistance In The West Bank, Including Rocket Capabilities, Is A Supreme Goal; We Must Take Advantage Of The Global Developments To Escalate The Confrontation With Israel, January 3, 2024

Special Dispatch No. 10932 - Incitement To Jihad And Terrorism Against Israel In The West Bank – November 2, 2023

Special Dispatch No. 10965 - Hamas Threatens To Repeat October 7 Attack In Or From West Bank – November 20, 2023

Inquiry & Analysis Series No. 1760 - The Involvement Of Palestinian Authority Security Forces In Terror Attacks Against Israel – April 18, 2024

Special Dispatch No. 11329 - Palestinian Authority (PA) And Fatah Harshly Criticize Iran: It Is Undermining The PA And The Jordanian Regime Using Its Proxies – Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad And Muslim Brotherhood – May 14, 2024

Special Dispatch No. 11377 - Palestinian Authority Continues To Present Young Terrorists As Innocent Children – June 4, 2024

Inquiry & Analysis Series No. 1775 - Terror Organizations Consolidating Their Control Over Tulkarm, Tubas In Northern West Bank, Undermining Control Of Palestinian Authority – July 23, 2024