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Hamas Seeks to Orchestrate West Bank Terror Attacks, But Palestinians Are No Longer Standing in Line to Volunteer
(Ha'aretz) Amos Harel - Arik Brabbing, formerly head of the Jerusalem and West Bank district and also head of cyber operations in the Israel Security Agency, told Ha'aretz that the "traditional threat of organized terror remains. A large number of these attacks are planned and funded from Gaza, mostly by people who were deported in the Shalit deal, who are acting there through a body called the West Bank Command." "The West Bank Command people have integrated in recent years into the military wing of Hamas in Gaza and have learned from its people new, more military methods of action....Iran is also involved in inculcating professional knowledge." However, "the activists in Gaza have difficulty recruiting many people in the West Bank who are willing to endanger themselves by planning major terror attacks or committing suicide attacks themselves. A change has taken place on the ground since the end of the intifada. People are no longer standing in line to volunteer." The only time in recent years in which a Hamas terror attack plan was relatively successful was in April 2016 when the operative who was riding the number 14 bus in Jerusalem with a bomb was killed, and a number of Israeli civilians were wounded. In retrospect, it turns out that the operative was fiddling with the detonator and had not intended to commit suicide.