IDF, Palestinians clash in Tubas, marking another West Bank terror escalation - analysis

Clashes between the IDF and Palestinian gunmen in Tubas and Tammun in the northern West Bank represent another escalation by various terrorist groups to expand the area they operate in.

This is part of a wider trend of armed groups – some of them linked to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, or various local “battalions” – to take over areas in the northern West Bank. Their tactics are changing as they acquire more weapons and develop more explosive devices.

Tammun sits on hill country that is a 40-minute drive southeast of Jenin. It is near the large town of Tubas. This area is near a series of large streams and wadis that run down to the Jordan Valley. In essence, Tammun is one of a line of towns that threatens the Jordan Valley.

Southeast of Tammun, the landscape spills out into a series of small communities, including the settlement of Hamra and the Palestinian village of Jiftlik, and then reaches the Jordan Valley. If Palestinian armed groups can control this area, they will have easier access to the Jordan Valley and may be able to smuggle weapons to threaten traffic on its key roads.

“As part of counterterrorism activity in the Jordan Valley area, an aircraft struck a number of armed terrorists in the area of the town of Tammun,” the IDF reported Wednesday. The IDF issued this short statement, but the terrorist groups clearly see these clashes as more important.

A long article at Al Mayadeen, a Beirut-based, pro-Iranian news channel, examined the clashes around Tammun. The “resistance,” a general term for Palestinian armed groups and for Iranian-backed proxies, “confronts a military aggression on Tubas and Tammun with explosive devices and bullets... and the occupation bombs the area with drones,” the report said.

The use of a drone strike in the area of Tubas is a new development. The IDF has been using drone strikes and airstrikes more frequently in the West Bank over the past year. This is because the terrorists are growing and innovating. Several years ago, it would have been major news if a drone was used in a strike in the West Bank.

'Gazafication'

This represents the “Gazafication” of the northern West Bank. The terrorist groups and Iran, which backs them, want to turn Tulkarm, Kalkilya, Jenin, and now Tubas into a kind of new Gaza. In their concept, they will slowly wrest control of this area from the Palestinian Authority and seek to carve out a contiguous zone of conflict.

They will use any vacuum of control to build more improvised explosive devices and to carpet some urban areas with these weapons. The IDF has been active against this kind of threat in areas such as Nur Shams, near Tulkarm.

But ultimately, the terrorist threat continues to grow, and shooting attacks are more common.

“Factions” in the area confronted the IDF with rifles, “bullets and explosive devices, and fierce clashes erupted,” Al Mayadeen reported, adding that “resistance fighters detonated explosive devices in the occupation vehicles in the Wadi area in the city of Tubas, which led to the damage of a military vehicle.”

“The Qassam Brigades in Tubas announced in a statement that its fighters, along with their brothers in the resistance factions, are engaged in violent clashes with the occupation forces storming the city of Tubas,” the report said.

“Al-Quds Brigades-Tubas Battalion” was one of the terrorist units in the area, it said.

“In turn, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades-Tubas ambushed an Israeli force in the Wadi Tayasir area [and] targeted it with bullets and explosive devices,” Al Mayadeen reported.

It said the IDF had used a “Zik drone,” which is a Hermes 450, in the clashes. This was the first time an IDF drone was used in a strike in this area, the report said.