By The Jerusalem Post (World News) | Created at 2025-01-10 09:55:06 | Updated at 2025-01-10 14:16:25
4 hours ago
MILITARY AFFAIRS | From bypass roads to PA cooperation, a ground-level look at how Israeli forces are managing terrorism threats in Samaria amid ongoing regional tensions.
By YONAH JEREMY BOB JANUARY 10, 2025 11:37
LOOKING DOWN from ‘Joseph’s Lookout Point’ on Mount Gerizim onto Nablus itself, one sees that the city wraps around multiple mountains and sprawls in a number of different directions, reflecting both the geography and different historical eras of development of the city.
(photo credit: YONAH JEREMY BOB)
The Palestinian terrorist attack that occurred on Monday, killing three Israelis and wounding eight, was on Highway 55, almost on the line between the IDF’s Efraim region and its Samaria region of the northern West Bank, though slightly inside the Efraim side.
When much of the public hears of such attacks, it struggles to understand where they occurred and is rarely on top of which IDF regional brigade is handling the chase after the terrorists.
Given how close the terrorist attack was to the IDF regional lines, IDF forces in both the Efraim and Samaria regions were activated to scour their areas on the chance that the Palestinian terrorists might be hiding nearby.
The Jerusalem Post took a tour through the Samaria region on Tuesday, only one day after the attack and as IDF and other security forces were still engaged in a high-stakes manhunt for the terrorists, and felt some additional tension in the air at various guard booths and key intersections, where there was some increased security forces buildup.
The terrorists have not yet been caught, and there have been no hints of an imminent arrest, but the Post understands that the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) has made locating the perpetrators its highest priority.
Besides the Monday attack, which was reported on by the media across-the-board, almost none of the media reported on the wounding of an IDF soldier from Battalion 7037 during a raid on Monday night to arrest suspected terrorists in the Talluza area near Nablus.
Similarly, few media outlets reported on the three Palestinian terrorist suspects who were killed and 18 arrested across the West Bank on Monday night, including a bunch near Nablus.
Much of the time that the Post spent in the West Bank was in the Nablus area of the Samaria region, whose main city has a population of around 150,000 people.
Although these IDF raids often get overlooked due to developments in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and even Yemen, the fact that they occur regularly are a major reason the West Bank Palestinian terrorist situation has not blown up to much greater levels, which could have distracted the military from the fights in Gaza and Lebanon.
One thing that the Post learned was that while the IDF deployed in heavy numbers after Monday’s attack to set up dozens of temporary roadblocks in Efraim and Samaria to try to catch the terrorists and put a lid on any wide escalating terrorist wave, this was a regular move for the military.
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There are countless instances of warnings of potential terrorist attacks which turn out to be minor altercations or false alarms, and IDF and other security forces are frequently called on to rush to certain areas on an emergency basis since the rule is to err on the side of caution.
So when the IDF has to make complex force deployment decisions about how many forces to send to a target area to try to catch terrorists on the run in real time versus how many forces to leave in their regular spots and to maintain a general stable level of protection in all areas of the West Bank, it has tons of practice.
There is no need, then, for IDF commanders to suddenly reinvent the wheel, as they have a vast volume of recent deployments and operations to draw from to make the best possible judgment call about balancing frontline as opposed to further back defense line forces.
A surprising fact which the Post saw up close was that there seemed to be very little immediate Palestinian terrorist threats emanating from the town of Huwara near Nablus.
Especially in 2023, Huwara was a major fault line of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with around half a dozen terrorist incidents in around only six months, from February to August.
Palestinian terrorists killed four Israelis, including the brothers Hallel and Yagel Yaniv, and the father and son Shay Silas and Aviad Nir Nigrekar, while various Israeli soldiers were wounded, and a number of other Israeli civilians were shot at or stoned, even as they escaped without being physically wounded.
Following one of the Palestinian terrorist incidents, came one of the worst Jewish terrorist incidents against Palestinians. At least dozens of extremist Israelis rampaged through Huwara in February 2023 – with no information about which Palestinians were involved in violence and which not – arbitrarily burning a large number of residences and cars, and physically harming many Palestinians.
At another point, there was a follow-up Jewish attack on Huwara, though smaller.
During this period in 2023, thousands of Israelis and Palestinians were driving through Huwara in parallel every day, being one of the only access roads to many other parts of the West Bank and Israel.
After some of the major incidents, the IDF started to work on a new bypass road in cooperation with the government. The idea was that Israeli Jews would then not need to go through Huwara for travel between Jewish villages and between Green Line Israel and the West Bank.
Expectations were that such a road would take 18 months to two years, leaving Israelis potentially exposed in Huwara well into 2025.
Yet, by November 2023, the bypass road was completed. This allowed a reduction of forces in the area and has heavily reduced both tensions and the number of easy opportunities for Palestinians from Huwara to attack Jews.
During the Post’s visit to the area, the bypass road seemed like a set fact of life, bypassing also the recent history of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians close to and in Huwara.
The Huwara quiet, however, did not bring quiet to the whole area
In August 2024, around nine months after the Huwara conflict was being bypassed, dozens of extremist Israeli Jews perpetrated a terrorist attack on the Palestinian town of Jit, not too far west from Huwara and Nablus.
They fired bullets and tear gas and torched cars and homes, killing a Palestinian and injuring several others.
While there are plenty of excuses and finger-pointing between the IDF and other security services, the bottom line is that the Central Command, which runs the West Bank, has not been given sufficient troops or drones in the area dedicated to stopping convoys of Jewish extremists, though such events have happened more frequently over the last two years.
Still, there have been no mass Jewish attacks on Palestinians since the Jit episode.
The Post understands from a number of sources that Defense Minister Israel Katz’s decision to cancel administrative detention against extremist Israeli Jews has not prevented Israel’s security services from keeping tabs on them.
IDF sources have said that issuing restraining orders keeping certain individuals out of the West Bank is still an option that the IDF can use.
REGARDING NABLUS itself, looking down from “Joseph’s Lookout Point” on Mount Gerizim, one sees that the city wraps around multiple mountains and sprawls in a number of different directions, reflecting both the geography and different historical eras of the city’s development. The two largest mountains that look down on it from either side are the famous biblical mountains of Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal. Archaeologists have found on Mount Ebal the remains of an altar for bringing animal sacrifices which is believed to date to the time of the biblical Joshua.
From the lookout point one can see, on the far side of the city, another range of mountains, one of which hosts the Jewish settlement of Elon Moreh at its top. The Jewish settlement of Itamar and the Palestinian town of Beit Furik can also be seen clearly nearby, before the ascent to the mountains.
These mountains are the near edge of the Jordan Valley, with IDF Unit 417 holding responsibility beyond those mountains and all the way to the Jordan border.
On the opposite side of Nablus, one can see Mount Ebal with an IDF position, and two large radar positions.
Getting to the lookout point is an interesting exercise, as you travel through the highly unique Samaritan town of Kiryat Luza.
The town boasts a small population of only around 400, but is known for carrying out biblical-style paschal sacrifices due to the sect’s commitment to its version of earlier biblical Judaism divorced from later, post-Assyrian conquest and Rabbinic Judaism developments.
Speaking both Hebrew and Arabic, the town’s people have much in common culturally with the Palestinian population in the area, but have Israeli identity numbers and benefits.
The town is also known for Har Bracha Tahini, where the Post got to briefly visit to speak to some of the workers, view the factory floor, and be given a presentation on how the company’s magic tehina taste is made.
Another quirk of Nablus is its small Christian-Palestinian community, something that Bethlehem is better known for. In any case, Nablus has a red-topped church near its center, serving that Christian group.
Returning to Nablus’s layout, there is more than one “old city,” a more ancient, biblical-period area, and a Roman-period area.
There are four different refugee camps, including the largest single refugee camp in the West Bank, with a population of around 30,000.
Smack in the middle of Nablus are the famous Joseph’s Tomb and the lesser known Jacob’s Well.
Joseph’s Tomb jumped back into the news twice in recent months with multiple incidents of Jews sneaking into the tomb area at night without coordinating with, or getting permission from, the IDF.
The IDF coordinates monthly visits of 30-40 busloads of Jewish visitors, but some sects, especially certain Breslov Hassidim, seem to believe that they will have divine or saintly rabbinic protection when entering Palestinian areas without any actual physical IDF protection.
On December 18, Palestinians from Nablus fired at an Israeli bus exiting the West Bank city after it had carried Israelis to Joseph’s Tomb without coordination.
The bus driver sustained light wounds, and the IDF was compelled to evacuate all of the Israelis from the city.
On October 22, another bus of Israelis entered Joseph’s Tomb without coordination, and the IDF also had to evacuate those Israelis, though none were injured in that incident.
Besides those incidents, most visits to Joseph’s Tomb coordinated with the IDF go on without any disruption, but there have been instances where Nablus Palestinians got into gunfights even with caravans of Israeli visitors being guarded by the IDF.
A recent plus for the IDF in the West Bank has been the switchover during the war from a primarily younger mandatory service force to a primarily more experienced reservist force.
Many in the IDF view the more experienced reservists as having a better handle on both when to jump into action to confront danger, as well as when to dial down tensions without the need for a full altercation.
This can come out when the IDF does one of its regular entrances into Nablus from different directions, either to arrest terrorist suspects, or merely to remind terrorist groups that it is watching out for any security threats.
A HOT issue of debate in the defense establishment right now is how much slack to give the Palestinian Authority to deal with terrorism in the West Bank, including its roughly monthlong push to bring order to the Jenin refugee camp after years where its forces were afraid to enter there.
Some on Monday started to call for greater IDF intervention and once again sidelining the PA, after the terrorist attack which originated from Jenin residents.
But most IDF sources have told the Post that they continue to support having the PA handle as much Palestinian terrorism as possible.
They explain that whatever percentage of terrorism the PA stops saves the IDF and Israel both money and resources, and avoids unnecessarily endangering Israeli troops.
Moreover, they believe that when Israel has sidelined the PA, as has occurred for large portions of the current war, terrorism did not disappear.
Whether it is Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or local, less centralized terrorist cells, as long as there is greater instability in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is always easier to recruit new terrorists.
In any case, no one believes that Palestinian terrorism in the West Bank is going to evaporate anytime soon.
In fact, many IDF sources believe that Palestinian West Bank terrorism may continue at similar levels, which have been heightened since March 2022, even if there is a hostage deal that ends the war in Gaza.
In that case, many IDF sources have told the Post, what is important is to try to have the PA get a broader handle on terrorism, while maintaining as many nightly IDF raids as necessary in any areas where the PA fails to act fast enough.
This would not completely end Palestinian terrorism emanating from Nablus, Huwara, Balata, Kusra, Beit Furik, other places in the Samaria region, and other Palestinian parts of the West Bank, but IDF sources said that it would be the best available hybrid solution under the current circumstances.
