Israel's Eastern Front

All is Not Quiet

The Israel-Iran War proceeds apace on five active fronts, but the least mentioned is the Eastern front which includes the West Bank as well as the long border with Jordan.  While the Israeli-Jordanian border is without incident per se it is still the main corridor for Iranian smuggling of arms into their proxies in the West Bank.  Prior to Iranian involvement, West Bank terrorist arms consisted mainly of some pistols, Kalashnikovs and sadly, arms stolen from IDF bases by Israeli criminals (both Jewish and Arab) and sold to West Bank terrorist groups.   In addition, there were of course self-manufactured suicide belts, other explosive devices and rocks of various sizes.  

Here is a little background as to why Israeli is in this situation in the West Bank.

Israel has no “broken windows” policing policy so the IDF mostly allowed the Palestinians to heave rocks and Molotov cocktails at civilians and soldiers alike and – if no deaths were caused, to let it go.   Even shootings that did not cause deaths were often ignored.   Much like the policy against Hamas in Gaza, attacks that did not cause deaths were treated as pesky mosquitoes if they were treated at all.  For the most part, one could assume that Israeli policy in the West Bank was run by Soros prosecutors.  So too, Israel has ignored the Jordanian border allowing smugglers to bring weapons from Syria via Jordan.    All the while, Hamas, Fatah and PA regular forces train and plan attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers.   The same assumption that was used in Gaza, that allowing money into the West Bank would turn the Palestinian terror leaders into businessmen and consumers in the Western style and would not want to risk losing their material goods.

The IDF has no estimates as to the amount of weaponry present in the West Bank but over the last three months they have confiscated thousands of rifles, pistols and hand grenades.   IDF military bases are open season for criminals as Israeli law, incredibly, does no permit soldiers to shoot at those stealing weapons but instead must call the police to respond.    That along with what are surely inside jobs as mafia-like gangs break into and steal guns from base armories as well as from soldiers who return home for leave.  But the main source seems to be Iranian smuggling from Syria through Jordan to the West Bank.    These are done in cars that come through the Jordanian border legally (a Jordanian member of parliament was arrested with a trunk full of weapons a few months ago) and via illegal smugglers and even, apparently drones. 

Until October 7, policy for the most part has the IDF and its special forces unit that deals with anti-terror warfare, Duvdevan,  as well as the Border Police’s Yamam unit, work with the Shaback (General Security Services often referred to as Shin Bet) to locate and stop terrorists who were “ticking time bombs” and about to perform a terror attack or in stopping terrorists who did attack.  If word got to them that someone was setting up a terror infrastructure, that was often ignored. Over the last 15 years Israeli policy has been one of “restraint” based on the idea that leaving people to build their lives normally will encourage them to build a peaceful, civil society.  This is in spite of the large numbers of various terror attacks originating in the West Bank.  In 2022 IDF says there were 7,589 incidents of rock throwing, 1,286 incidents of Molotov cocktails being launched, 285 shootings and 14 stabbings.  31 Israelis were killed and 281 wounded in these attacks.

During this period, Jenin, located in the northern West Bank, became the capital of West Bank terrorism.  From July 3-5 of 2023 the IDF and Border Police held a joint operation to ostensibly clean out the terrorist infrastructures in the Jenin refugee camp.  The operation was mostly aimed at Palestinian Islamic Jihad.   The assumption was that this would be enough to deter Palestinian terrorists from their attacks

All the while Israel was ignoring the terrorist infrastructure being built, the EU and the US – but mostly the EU – were encouraging Palestinian intransigence by helping to build Palestinian settlements (yes there are new Palestinian settlements) in areas designated by the Oslo accords as Area C – under the control of Israel.   This encouraged the PA to hold out and not negotiate with Israel (yes it was the PA that refused to negotiate, not Israel) assuming the EU would help it build in illegally taken land until it could, with the terrorist infrastructure it knew was being built, choke the Jews out.

And then October 7 arrived.

By Saturday afternoon on October 7, the IDF was already on the ground in the West Bank arresting terrorists and confiscating weapons.    Rules of engagement changed radically and allowed the IDF to respond with active fire to all threats. It started an effort that is still ongoing since it needs to clean up over 10 years of neglect.   At first, IDF forces were stopping overt attacks and responding to (mostly false) reports of terrorists who infiltrated Jewish towns and villages.    There was a lot of paranoia at the time and the reports streamed in by scared residents.  Most of the army age men were already in their reserve units leaving civil defense to older men and women who had previous military training.   Over the next few days, the IDF was able to start organizing more efficient attacks on the terrorist infrastructure.

A good part of the initial operations were directed to Jenin.  Instead of a Gaza like operation of sending masses of troops in to stay for days or weeks with air, armor and artillery support, there was a decision to operate over the course of hours – or sometimes an entire day by special forces and infantry only.  This allowed the forces to concentrate their power in specific areas where known terrorist infrastructure was setup.  As opposed to Gaza, in the West Bank the Shaback (General Security Services – Shin Bet) had agents on the ground in nearly all cities.   They were able to quickly find out the where and how of these cells.    The major operations in Jenin ended up focusing on the homes of terror leaders as well as the Mosques and hospitals that were used by Hamas, PIJ and Fatah as “safe houses”.   There were tunnels discovered under mosques as well as stations setup for shooting grenades and small arms fire. 

In the hospitals, they used ambulances to move their forces so the IDF setup checkpoints and checked ambulances for terrorists and armaments.   This method was also used in the other major cities and their adjacent “refugee camps”.  In the West Bank, like in Gaza, the UNRWA, under direct UN auspices are manned by people with connections to, if not membership in the various terrorist groups and these cities, referred to as refugee camps are infested with terrorists.

The major operations of the IDF that occur daily and are in all the major cities as well as surrounding villages and refugee camps.  From October 7 until mid-December the IDF stopped 1,870 terror suspects including over 1,100 who were Hamas members.   In addition, over 200 terrorists have been killed.

The main urban areas where battles are occurring are Jenin, Tulkarm, Qalquilya, Nablus, Ramallah, Jericho, Bethlehem and Hebron. 

These West Bank cities control the approaches to most of Israel’s population.   The northern West Bank cities sit right on the thin corridor from Haifa to Ashdod (with Tel-Aviv sitting in the middle) that houses most of Israel’s infrastructure and population.   In the central and southern West Bank we have Jerusalem and to the south Be’er Sheva.  To the north we have a string of agricultural kibbutzim and other villages.

 Iranian control of any of these areas is a direct threat that does not require advanced munitions or armor much the way that Hamas did not need advanced weaponry to cause the horror that was October 7.  After the 1967 Six Day War when discussions were underway about what to do with this territory the general consensus, from a security point of view was that the pre-67 borders were “Auschwitz borders”.  Over the years, especially after the Oslo accords of 1993 which brought Yassir Arafat and his PLO-Fatah comrades within spitting distance of Israel there was an attempt by many to formulate a plan for full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank.   For security purposes, many felt that at a minimum the Jordan Valley needed to have a permanent Israeli military presence but a bunch of Israeli military experts led by ex-PM and Chief of Staff Ehud Barak, along with US “experts” formulated a plan that would use advanced technology in the Jordan Valley instead of actual troops.   October 7 has eliminated that “solution”.

The double disaster that was October 7   - the invasion, massacre and taking of hostages as well as the years of neglect that allowed Hamas to build a multi-billion dollar tunnel network – has proven to the vast majority of Israelis and honest Westerners that an advanced air force and high-tech defenses, however useful and necessary are helpful mostly as support for ground troops and the human intelligence. 

Currently, Israeli infantry and special forces are fighting without the luxury of air, armor or artillery support in battles that are as violent as they are necessary.   Not choosing to fight this way now will mean Gaza type battles in the future as Iran continues its attempts to arm and train terrorists in the West Bank.  The destruction taking place in Gaza will have to take place in the West Bank if Israel were to stop its operations there.

No one can predict the future very well and we don’t know what the middle east, or the world will look like in 50 years, but Israeli military planning for the next half century has to assume that the situation today will not get better.  If it does –it will only be due to the constant vigilance of the IDF.  If it doesn’t, Israel will need to maintain military control over the entire area of Western Mandate Palestine.  That doesn’t mean that Israel needs to control most of the civilian Arab-Palestinian population there  - a solution to which we offered here (A Palestinian Political Solution – Part 1 and Part 2).

A quick glance at the maps will clarify the issues.

Northern West Bank:

Central and Southern West Bank: