Iran is pivoting toward arming Palestinian militants in the occupied West Bank following the downfall of Tehran’s ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Israel’s Defense Minister said on Tuesday.
"Judea and Samaria has become a central arena in the map of threats to Israel and we are preparing to respond accordingly," Katz said, using the Biblical names for lands on the west bank of Jordan River which Israel seized in a 1967 war.
"We are seeing increasing efforts to promote Palestinian terrorism in Israel through the smuggling of advanced weapons, funding and guidance both on the part of the Iranian axis and on the part of the radical Sunni Islamic axis that is strengthening its grip on the region after the events in Syria,” he added.
Violence in the West Bank has spiked in recent weeks as Iran copes with military losses dealt by Israel to its armed allies in the region, especially in Syria, which had provided a key strategic and military base for Tehran.
In Lebanon, Iran's most powerful ally Hezbollah suffered a huge blow after Israeli bombardment of critical infrastructure and the group’s leadership since September, while Hamas in Gaza has been weakened since its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, led to the longest Gaza war since the group took control of the enclave in 2007.
The series of setbacks to Iran's network of military allies has, according to Israel, led to a renewed focus on the West Bank as part of Tehran's war against its archenemy.
“Iran-backed terrorist groups, including Islamic Jihad, al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, and Hamas, have proliferated in number and strengthened their presence in the West Bank in recent years," Joe Truzman, an expert on Palestinian militants wrote in The Long War Journal.
“Iranian arms and funding have primarily fueled this violent escalation,” he added, saying the groups have established armed cadres in the West Bank cities of Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarm and beyond.
”Iran has established itself in our sector and over half a million citizens of the State of Israel are sitting on a ticking time bomb," Israel Ganz, a top leader of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, said on Tuesday.
"We must not continue to live here with the same concept that existed on the sixth of October.”
The announcement comes on the back of a deadly attack which saw three Israelis killed in a shooting on a car and bus near the settlement of Kedumim this week.
In the latest 2024 statistics, Israel’s internal security agency the Shin Bet said it had thwarted 1,040 significant attacks in the West Bank and Jerusalem during 2024.
These included 689 shooting attacks, 326 bomb attacks, 13 stabbing attacks, nine rammings and a kidnapping. It was a 40 percent increase in 2023, it said.
Since the Oct. 7 attack, dozens of Israelis and hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank.
