Clashes, Weapons Finds Suggest Terrorist Front in Judea, Samaria Could Eclipse Houthi Threat
JERUSALEM Israel – The Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen seized center stage in the Middle East during the Christmas and Hanukkah season with their persistent drone and missile launches from 1,200 miles away.
Those missiles and drones have vexed residents of central Israel, who must prepare to flee to shelters during all hours for the few projectiles that make it through Israel's air defenses, as they have proven to cause injury, and occasionally, death, not to mention the perpetual anxiety produced by the warning sirens themselves.
Yet, in Israel's seven-front war, the Houthi problem could again become a sideshow as a much nearer enemy rears its head: the Palestinian terrorist factions in Judea and Samaria, also known as the West Bank.
For days now, Palestinian Authority forces have clashed with Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror cells in such Samarian hotbeds as the Jenin refugee camp and the city of Tulkarem. Several have died on both sides.
A backdrop to the fighting is the race to establish facts on the ground in the critical three-and-a-half weeks before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration.
The Israel Defense Forces leadership, along with the Biden administration, which has liberally funded and trained the P.A. forces, sees the Palestinian Authority as the future ruler of the Gaza Strip.
JNS News columnist and commentator Caroline Glick argued this week that IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi has refused to carry out a Netanyahu government order to take charge of Gaza humanitarian aid distribution.
In a column called The Battle for Jerusalem, Glick wrote, “For Halevi and several of his subordinates, avoiding direct Israeli control over the population in Gaza has been a central rationale for directing the fighting on the ground. Their operating concept foresees the same P.A. that has no control over Judea and Samaria entering Gaza and taking over governance from Hamas at the end of the war.”
For more than 30 years, a global establishment has insisted that the Palestinian Authority aspires to different goals than the terror groups. However, a recent survey conducted in September by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research showed that 85 percent of Palestinians in Judea and Samaria supported the Hamas war effort against Israel, while only 18 percent indicated support for the Palestinian Authority.
Raids by Palestinian police and by the IDF in West Bank terrorist hotbeds indicate a vast supply of RPGs and other Iranian-supplied weaponry which Hamas used so effectively to kill Israeli soldiers and civilians on October 7th, 2023.
President-elect Trump, whose central foreign policy campaign promise is to stop "endless" wars, will be tested at the outset in January by a burgeoning conflict in which he insists Israel must first have a victory.
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