Strangling Iran: What holds true in the West Bank, holds in Gaza - analysis

Israel can learn some lessons from the October 7 catastrophe without waiting for a State Commission of Inquiry to be established and issue its findings.

One such lesson is that it is imperative to deal with security challenges and problems early instead of waiting until they metastasize into something much larger and more dangerous.

This is what the IDF did between Tuesday and Wednesday morning, launching Operation Summer Camps in northern Samaria to degrade an emerging terrorist infrastructure there before it takes on monstrous proportions.

Some may look at the movement of two additional IDF brigades into the West Bank with bewilderment, asking if this is the best use at this time of over-extended IDF manpower as the army is fighting wars of varying intensity against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. That the IDF has allocated a division for that purpose shows that it realizes past mistakes made in Gaza and Lebanon must not be repeated in the West Bank.

And what were those mistakes? Allowing terrorist organizations to build up under Israel’s watchful eye, without Israel aggressively taking action to stop it.

This is what happened in Lebanon after the end of the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

In brazen violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, Hezbollah armed itself to the teeth, increasing its rocket arsenal from some 10,000 after the war to an estimated 150,000 today, and Israel took only little action to stop it.

Likewise, Hamas began turning Gaza into a deadly fortress and building up a significant and deadly arsenal from the moment it overthrew the Palestinian Authority in 2007. There, too, Israel saw but did nothing early to prevent it, trusting – tragically – that the Jewish state’s might alone would deter Hamas from using what they were building up because of a realization on the other side that using their arsenal against Israel would trigger devastating retribution.

A wake-up call

Israel is paying a heavy price for that inaction today.

The IDF’s actions on Wednesday in Jenin, Tulkarm, Tubas, and the Far’a refugee camp in the Jordan Valley indicate that it has learned that lesson. The failed suicide bombing attack last week in Tel Aviv was the catalyst for implementing this lesson.

A terrorist believed to be from Nablus, identified as Jafar Muna, carried an 8 kg. bomb outside of a crowded synagogue when the device exploded – apparently a “work accident” – killing him and injuring a passerby. The country heaved a sigh of relief at its good fortune for this miracle, at having averted a mass-casualty incident.

But it was a wake-up call. That an explosive device of this magnitude was smuggled into Israel showed that the country needed to take the growing terrorist infrastructure developing in Judea and Samaria quite seriously. It also needs to take threats from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which took responsibility for the bomber, seriously as well.

Iran, which successfully identifies areas of weak governance around Israel to set up proxies to lash out at the Jewish state, has been making serious inroads into the West Bank for the last decade, smuggling weapons to a myriad of different terrorist groups there through Lebanon and Jordan.

Last August, after a 42-year-old mother of three, Batsheva Nigri, was murdered near Hebron in a shooting attack on her car, both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant pointed fingers at Iran.

“We are in the middle of a terrorist onslaught that is encouraged, guided, and funded by Iran and its proxies,” Netanyahu said. Gallant added that the wave of terror at the time, two months before October 7, was “guided by Iran, which is looking for any way to harm Israeli citizens.”

Both Palestinian terrorists and Iranian officials have also acknowledged Iran’s involvement. Since October 7, Iran has stepped up these efforts, hoping to ignite another front against Israel.

In July of 2023, senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk was quoted in the Iranian press saying Iran is actually fighting alongside “the resistance in Palestine” through its generous support. An editorial published by the Iranian Tasnim News Agency that same month said Iran’s successful arming of the West Bank would sink the “leaking ship of Israel.”

Automatic weapons and crude pipe bombs have been replaced in the hands of terrorists by powerful improvised explosive devices (IEDs) used against troops conducting counter-terror actions in the West Bank. These IEDs, including the one that Muna wanted to explode in Tel Aviv, reveal a terrorist infrastructure developing – including IED manufacturing labs – directly under Israel’s nose that Iran could use as yet another pressure point against the country.

This is something that Israel cannot allow, and last week’s attempted suicide bombing set alarm bells ringing regarding how far Iran’s program had advanced and convincing policymakers of the need now to quash it.

The IDF’s action on Wednesday was reportedly the most significant military maneuver in the West Bank since Operation Defensive Shield which began in March of 2002, following the Netanya Park Hotel Passover Eve massacre where a suicide bombing attack killed 30 people at a Passover seder.

Up until then, the IDF – under the Oslo Agreements – stayed out of the large Palestinian cities, thereby enabling a terrorist infrastructure to thrive, one that included labs for manufacturing bombs for suicide attacks.

The Park Hotel bombing was the trigger for bringing the IDF back into the Palestinian cities. It took several years of intense military action throughout Judea and Samaria, but these actions did lead to an end to the Second Intifada and significantly degrade terrorist capabilities, leading to a precipitous drop in the number of Israelis killed in terrorist attacks: from 457 fatalities in 2002 to 9 in 2019.

Just as some of the lessons learned from Gaza on October 7 can be applied to the West Bank, the reverse is also true: lessons learned over the years fighting terror in Judea and Samaria can be applied in Gaza. For instance, the operation currently underway in northern Samaria is an indication of what the future holds in Gaza.

The 42-day Operation Defensive Shield that began in March of 2002 was a turning point, and Israel did degrade terrorist capabilities. But this was not a one-off deal, with Israel just leaving the territory after the operation.

Rather, it takes continuous work to ensure that the terrorist infrastructure does not reappear, what security officials continuously refer to as “mowing the lawn.” What this predicts is that when the intense fighting stops in Gaza, the continuous war against terrorists – preventing the resurrection of a terrorist infrastructure there – will continue for years, if not decades.

Just look at Judea and Samaria. Twenty-two years after the IDF launched Operation Defensive Shield, it is still “mowing the lawn” there and trying to prevent the re-emergence of a vast terrorist infrastructure. It is endless labor, with no clear finish line. What holds true in Judea and Samaria will certainly be the case in Gaza as well.