JNS
While Israel remains mired in Gaza, it has quietly transformed the security landscape of the West Bank—crushing terror networks, dismantling Iranian proxies and re-establishing control over territory.
This series has explored the many fronts on which Israel has struggled since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023; however, Israel has scored one clear and decisive victory—in Judea and Samaria, or the West Bank. This success is not the product of a single battle, but of Hamas’s failure, Israel’s foresight and the Israel Defense Forces’ quiet exploitation of an opportunity while the world’s attention was elsewhere—fixed on Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran. In the shadows of those wars, Israel has struck a long-overdue blow against the terrorist infrastructure threatening its heartland.
For Hamas, the failure of Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank to launch their own invasion was a mortal blow to its self-image as the vanguard of the people. The group had hoped that its massacre would ignite a new intifada that would engulf Israel. While some West Bank Palestinians cheered the atrocities and a few joined in, the region never erupted.
Had Hamas succeeded, Israel’s predicament could have been catastrophic. Imagine if rockets were fired from the West Bank toward Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Ben-Gurion International Airport. Imagine thousands of terrorists flooding through the porous security barrier, overrunning isolated Jewish communities the way Hamas assaulted the Gaza periphery. We now know that Hamas had begun building rocket workshops in the West Bank—a chilling glimpse of what might have been.
The calm was not born of moderation. Many Palestinians in the West Bank share Hamas’s genocidal ideology. The so-called “moderates” of the Palestinian Authority still adhere to the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s “phased plan,” accepting temporary compromise only as a step toward Israel’s destruction. Yet even the most radical ideologues understood after Oct. 7 that the costs of another war outweighed the fantasy of erasing the State of Israel. They remember the Second Intifada and the destruction it brought. Watching the IDF’s relentless operations in Gaza reinforced the message: Hamas’s path leads only to ruin.
One poll found that 74% were concerned that the West Bank could be destroyed like Gaza.
Many analysts claim that prosperity does not temper Palestinian extremism; that may be true. But fear of losing everything can.
Israelis still have reason for concern. Consider that in October, 59% of West Bankers still approved of the Hamas attack (down from 82% in December 2023). Nearly half still expected Hamas to win the war (down from 83%). Two-thirds (down from 85%) expressed satisfaction with Hamas, compared with only 23% for the Palestinian Authority and 16% for its aging leader, Mahmoud Abbas. A majority (53%) rejects the two-state concept. A September INSS poll revealed that 54% of respondents believe Israel has no right to exist, while 50% think it can be destroyed. Additionally, 43% opposed disarming Hamas, even if it would help end the war.
Furthermore, a plurality of participants favored the establishment of a unity government composed of both Fatah and Hamas to rule Gaza.
It is no wonder that 78% of Israeli Jews told the Israel Democracy Institute it is undesirable for a Palestinian state to be established.
Israel wisely did not wait for the next uprising. On Jan. 21, it launched “Operation Iron Wall,” a campaign designed to dismantle the terror networks metastasizing in the West Bank. With global attention fixed on Gaza, Israel acted decisively and, for once, without the paralyzing glare of international outrage.
For years, the P.A. ignored the terrorists in their midst. In some instances, it was too weak and too fearful to confront them. Abbas, who will turn 90 this month, supports his own cadre of terrorists, but his concern, justifiably, was that Hamas would overthrow him. Israel and the P.A. maintained a tenuous security coordination, united only by their shared fear that Hamas would overthrow Abbas as it did in Gaza.
Israel’s action came amid warnings that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were relocating command and operational hubs to the West Bank, attempting to replicate Gaza’s “resistance model.” Intelligence linked this expansion to direct Iranian sponsorship—providing funding, training and weapons. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed to destroy terrorist infrastructure and prevent Iran from establishing an “eastern front.”
“Operation Iron Wall” set out to:
The campaign began in the terrorist stronghold of Jenin. Bulldozers cleared IEDs, blocked escape routes and flushed out militants. Operations expanded to Tulkarm and Tammun, demolishing 23 terror-linked structures and arresting dozens. By February, the IDF was operating in Nur al-Shams, another terror hub. By May, 100 structures had been razed in Tulkarem and Nur al-Shams to create secure corridors and end decades of unchallenged lawlessness.
The operation continued through the summer, with raids targeting terror financiers in Qabatiya, al-Mughayyir, Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron. In September, Israeli security discovered an improvised rocket in Tulkarem—the latest in a series of attempted rocket-manufacturing efforts linked to Iran and Hamas. Subsequent operations dismantled rocket cells in Ramallah and Ni’ma, marking a concerning escalation toward Gaza-style armament in the West Bank.
In October, the IDF and the Shin Bet announced the dismantling of a major Iranian arms-smuggling network connected to the IRGC’s Quds Force, seizing anti-tank rockets, drones, Claymore mines, RPGs and hundreds of small arms. A raid in Beitunia uncovered 15 rockets under assembly, confirming Tehran’s attempts to militarize the territory.
By fall, Israel had killed more than 1,000 terrorists and seized more than 2,000 weapons. Most senior terrorists on the wanted list and Iranian arms smuggling networks have been neutralized. Hamas condemned the P.A. for cooperating with Israeli forces.
While the world focused on the displacement of Gazans, the operation has caused the biggest displacement of civilians in the West Bank since the Six-Day War in June 1967, with UNRWA claiming more than 40,000 Palestinians have been forced from their homes. The Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur al-Shams camps are said to be nearly empty, raising a long-ignored question: Why were these refugee camps still standing after seven decades under Palestinian rule? The plan is to transform these areas into neighborhoods within adjacent cities—a move intended to end their historical role as breeding grounds for terror.
If the world’s cameras had been pointed at the West Bank rather than Gaza, the outcry would have been deafening. Yet the relative silence has given Israel space to secure its heartland.
While Israel remains mired in Gaza, it has quietly transformed the security landscape of the West Bank—crushing terror networks, dismantling Iranian proxies and re-establishing control over territory that had become a haven for militants.
Israel has not lost this war. Unlike the other fronts, it has achieved what it set out to do: destroy the infrastructure of terror before it could destroy the State of Israel itself.
Part I: Gaza and the illusion of victory
Part II: Israel bloodied Hezbollah, but only Lebanon can defeat it
Part III: Houthis keep the rockets coming
Part IV: Unexpected consequences in Syria
Part V: A ravaged economy
Part VI: The tragedy of the hostages
Part VII: Breaking the IDF
Part VIII: Israel must not be Sparta
