Despite the attempted attack on Monday (26), the Israeli Army said that there are no injuries so far
On Monday morning (26), a rocket was launched from Jenin, a Palestinian city in the West Bank, and exploded in Palestinian territory, but there are no reports of injuries. The terrorist group Hamas admitted authorship of the attack. According to the Israeli Army, the attack posed no real threat to communities in the area. Security forces conducted searches in the area.
Israel has dealt with rocket attacks from southern Lebanon and still faces this type of aggression from the Gaza Strip. However, the geographical position of the West Bank aggravates the problem, as it is close to the center of Israel, the most densely populated region of the country, where Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, its largest cities, are located.
André Lajst, a political scientist specialized in the Middle East and executive president of StandWithUs Brazil, explains the dangers of the new offensives: “Palestinian terrorists from Jenin have launched a rocket against Israel. This is the first time this has happened. This is a phenomenon that used to be southern Lebanon against Israel. In the 2000s it became a conflict between Gaza against Israel, and now it has become West Bank against Israel. The territory is much larger than Gaza, 15 times larger in size, and the groups that are in the region are spread over a larger population,” Lajst reports.
The expert also describes why this new offensive is damaging even for the Palestinian people: “It is very dangerous for the daily life of Palestinians, more so than for the daily life of Israelis. The Israeli army is inside this territory and they will not let this happen, so just imagine what the Israeli forces will have to do if this phenomenon of rockets coming from the West Bank and not only from the Gaza Strip becomes a reality. If this happens, there will be a complete change in Israel’s security policy toward the West Bank, and the main losers will be the Palestinians,” explains Lajst.
Understanding the conflict in the West Bank
Since the beginning of last year, Israel has faced a wave of attacks from armed groups not connected to terrorist groups, known as Islamic Jihad and Hamas, who are carrying out attacks of opportunity against Israeli civilians and soldiers inside Israel and in the West Bank. That territory is partly controlled by the Palestinian Authority and partly controlled by Israel. “There are thousands of armed men in the West Bank, funded by Iran, with money from Islamic Jihad, but with no affiliation to the group. Sometimes the money also comes from Lebanon through Hezbollah,” explains expert André Lajst.
“They are actively working to make the whole region catch fire so that Israel needs to take action and it leads to a third intifada, a Palestinian uprising, a breakdown of Israel’s diplomatic relations with Arab countries, and that Israel is isolated in the world with its diplomatic relations strained,” Lajst says of the terrorist acts.
Israel has then been entering the West Bank region, taking actions to try to arrest terrorists and prevent these attacks. “Many of these Israeli incursions are met with gunfire by these armed men in Jenin, in Nablus, in Hebron and other Palestinian cities where the Palestinian National Authority is weak, has no strong rule of law and is anarchy,” the expert explains.
Israeli incursions often lead to the death of armed Palestinians. The wakes become a new incitement to violence, with Palestinians wanting revenge, which spawns new terrorist attacks. “Israel has to strike back at these attacks to arrest the people who did it or to arrest the people who ordered it or to arrest the financiers or to prevent next attacks. So it becomes a never-ending spiral of violence,” Lajst describes. The expert also explains that the conflict has no end in sight: “It will only end when the Islamic Republic of Iran, the largest financier of terrorism in the world, stops financing terrorism not only there, but throughout the Middle East,” he explains.