The details of the big picture in Judea and Samaria – Israel's "third front" these days – seem routine, somewhat trivial. Another night arrest, another prevention, another shooting on the roads, but only after gathering, one by one, the pieces of the entire puzzle, is the terrible danger revealed, whose many buds are only emerging now.
This is no longer "only" mass demonstrations in solidarity with the October 7 massacre in the streets of Ramallah, Nablus or Tulkarm. These are no longer "only" statements by senior Fatah figures, headed by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, in favor of the massacre in the Gaza Strip, and in stirring up the spirits towards the possibility of a similar atrocity against Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria or along the seamline communities, within the Green Line.
The event that is now taking place before our eyes may indicate that the Oslo concept of maintaining the PA, to which Netanyahu and the defense establishment still adhere, is on the verge of breaking. That the scenario of a "reversal of the barrels" by the PA apparatuses towards IDF forces, and/or communities in Judea and Samaria and the seam line within the Green Line, is approaching. The warning signs and signals are too numerous for us to ignore.
Since the beginning of 2023, dozens of attacks, attempted attacks and shooting attacks against IDF forces or the civilian population in Judea and Samaria have been carried out by Palestinian policemen, members of the Preventive Security forces and other PA apparatuses. Alongside many successful assassinations by the IDF and Shin Bet against Hamas and Islamic Jihad members, dozens of Fatah members were also eliminated in the past year. These are mainly Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which since 2021 have returned to terrorism, and prior to the massacre in the envelope explicitly called their members "... What are you waiting for? It's time to kill the Jews..."
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Since Guardian of the Walls, more than 100 members of the security forces have been killed while attempting to carry out attacks, mainly led by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. They are often in contact with Fatah secretaries in their regions; Those whose declarations in favor of the massacre and their explicit hope for a similar massacre in their sector, Judea and Samaria, have been scorching the Palestinian networks over the past two months.
The facts presented here are emphasized by the PA, but (relatively) downplayed by Israel, which still sees the PA and its security forces as partners. Israel's deliberate obfuscation emerges from announcements by the defense establishment about arrests (or prevention). These announcements usually report the general number of detainees and indicate how many of them are Hamas affiliations. A week ago, for example, it was reported that since the beginning of the war, 2,200 people have been arrested in Judea and Samaria, about 1,100 of whom are Hamas affiliations. The public has not been told to whom the other 50 percent belong, and one has to look carefully at the reports, especially from the Palestinian side, to understand that alongside jihadists and "unidentified," many are affiliated with organizations affiliated with Fatah, the PA's flesh, or its security apparatuses. Those that the United States aspires to integrate, the day after the war, into the comprehensive solution for Gaza and the West Bank.
"Even one penny"
The dimming of this information in the official announcements of the defense establishment is not accidental. It is intended to preserve what remains (and indeed remains!) of the security cooperation with the PA apparatuses in order to thwart terrorist attacks. It is intended to prevent, as much as possible, copying and imitation attacks by other members of the apparatus. At the same time, however, information about the role of members of the security forces and Fatah in terrorism against Israel is greatly concealed.
PA announcements, on the other hand, not only are there no concealment of the event that is now unfolding before our eyes, on the contrary. A few months before the massacre in the Gaza envelope, Fatah published a collage of photos of 24 terrorists, "martyrs" as it called them, many of them members of the PA apparatuses, who were killed in the confrontation with Israel. The publication, revealed by Palestinian Media Watch, was last published on 14 November and bears the inscription "We are proud of you." It was distributed throughout the West Bank as part of the open competition with Hamas to lead the struggle against Israel.
Today, the families of the 24 members of these security forces receive respectable terrorist grants of thousands of shekels a month, like thousands of other terrorists from Hamas and other organizations, some of whom are affiliated with Fatah. Abbas himself has already made it clear that "even if the PA has only one penny left, it will direct it, first of all, to the relatives of the martyrs and prisoners," and that he will never withhold their salaries.
Fatah and PA members, like Hamas members killed in attacks or assassinations, have been receiving death notices and official PA military funerals over the past two months, and official PA officials often participate in the event. Muhammad Abad, for example, an officer in the Palestinian security forces who was assassinated in Jenin alongside other terrorists who planned to carry out an attack on one of the communities in Samaria, received such a ceremony and obituary.
The connection between the PA security apparatuses and Fatah's "Al-Aqsa Martyrs" has also been illustrated more than once in recent weeks. The recently assassinated head of the battalions in Tulkarm, Jihad Shehadeh, is pictured alongside his friends in the Palestinian security forces in the city, holding an M-16 rifle. Some of the terrorists who acted against the IDF have family members in the apparatuses, and often the sons of senior members of the apparatus are terrorists. For example, Nayef Rajoub, a senior Hamas figure in the town of Dura, is the brother of Jibril Rajoub, former head of the Preventive Security apparatus in the West Bank, who expressed support for the massacre in the Gaza Strip and promised "a more violent explosion in the West Bank."
While we do not have an internal organizational breakdown of the 1,600 hot terrorism incidents (shooting and IEDs) and the 4,000 stone-throwing and stone-throwing incidents that took place throughout Judea and Samaria in 2023, there is a short list of terrorist incidents over the past year in which terrorists from Fatah and its branches took part, alongside Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
United Battalions
Meir Tamari of Hermesh was murdered last May by Fatah members, as was Batsheva Negri at the Sheep Junction last August. A Palestinian policeman named Alaa Quatu from Tulkarm refugee camp planned to assassinate Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan, and Abd al-Fattah Harosheh, the murderer of Yagel and Hillel Yaniv in Huwara, was also a member of the PA's internal security apparatus, and at the same time was a terrorist planted in Hamas. These are just examples.
And the list goes on. Many of the terrorists who murdered and harmed IDF soldiers and civilians in the past two years were members of Fatah and the PA apparatuses. Only recently was it reported, not too emphatically, that Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the Hebron area, a distinctly Hamas city, threatened Mahmoud Abbas that if he did not join the war against Israel, they would rebel against him militarily.
Fatah's Martyrs poster, photo: Courtesy of Palwatch website
If we go back to the period before Guardian of the Walls, we can find more examples of involvement of members of the security forces in terrorist attacks, but the frequency has been increasing since Guardian of the Walls, and even more so in 2023.
Just two weeks ago, senior Fatah official Tawfiq Tirawi refuted claims that Fatah was not involved in the fighting, and even noted (in an interview with the Palestinian Al-Sharq TV) that Fatah, which is involved in the fighting alongside Gaza, has adopted terrorist groups in refugee camps and cities, such as Nablus and Jenin, where united battalions of all the organizations operate. Tirawi, former head of Palestinian intelligence, claimed that the organizations were coordinated and that "Fatah has never given up its rifle and the armed struggle and will always be at the forefront of the struggle."
About the latest fuel fumes
The possibility that the collection of sporadic terrorist incidents will turn into an organized flood, and that the barrels of the PA's rifles will be directed at Israel (as in the Western Wall Tunnel incidents in 1996, and as in the second intifada), now concerns many factors.
Members of the State Comptroller's Office, for example, toured Samaria a few days ago. The head of the council there, Yossi Dagan, recalls that the PA does not hide its support for the murder of Jews; PA officials did not condemn the massacre, and some even encouraged and praised it. "We know that in some cases PA operatives walk around with licensed weapons during the day, and with prohibited weapons, for attacks at night. The IDF," he notes, "goes above and beyond in intensive raids on terror centers and terrorists, but it must also prepare for a scenario of reversal. Continuing to treat the PA today as a partner is a terrible mistake."
Maj. Gen. (res.) Uzi Dayan, former deputy chief of staff and head of the National Security Council, recommends that the defense establishment prepare immediately for the reed reversal scenario, "whether it is a partial and local reversal or a full reversal. Our problematic relations with the PA," he estimates, "will be put to the test once the elderly Abu Mazen, who is currently living on his last fuel fumes, disappears."
Dayan believes that Israel must already prepare for the occupation of Area A, over which the PA has full civilian and security control. "It sounds extreme, but there really is no other right solution to the dangers we face, and to those that are already being realized on the ground. Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley, where the time has come for us to exercise our sovereignty, will all end up being extensive Areas B and C. This is what we should strive for in Gaza as well. The powers of the Palestinians will be municipal and civil only. Not security."
Photo: Joshua Yosef
In Judea and Samaria, Dayan believes, "We have pretty good control on the ground, but all the other data is worse than the situation in the envelope. There are tens of thousands of Palestinians carrying weapons, and the potential of their raid on one community or another exists at any moment..."
Is there intelligence that suggests that the nest reversal scenario is imminent?
"I don't know, but the bar we have to work with now – I always thought – is not necessarily the one that measures the intentions of the other side or tries to get into the enemy's head, but a bar that measures the ability of the other side. During the Gulf War," Dayan recalls, "there was a General Staff discussion in which the question was asked, will the Iraqis fire at us? Everyone assumed not, and also explained quite logically why not. I said they would shoot. They asked me why? I said: 'Because they can, and when they do, you too will come to the same conclusion: they will shoot, because they could.' And so it was."
And the equal decree?
"We need to prepare not according to the intentions of our enemies, but according to their capabilities, and since the scenario of reversal is not detached, and the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria have capabilities and an orderly doctrine of hostility and hatred towards us, then we must prepare according to their capabilities, according to the potential for danger, and derive from it the scenarios, which are also supported by intentions."
The IDF will tell you that there is intelligence cooperation with the PA, that they help thwart terrorist attacks...
"True, but it's not perceived there as a total war on terror. They also do not carry out the assassinations with exceptional talent and quality or with great enthusiasm, see Jenin and other places. It is already not possible to build only on them, and in the future it is not certain that it will be possible to build on them at all."
Dayan is concerned both by the fact that many of the terrorists and those thwarted are Fatah members, and by statements made by senior Fatah figures about the massacre that took place and about similar events that may take place. "At the opening of the tunnel in 1996, the crowd led, and inside mingled Palestinian policemen who shot at the IDF. This time there is another danger – attacks on Israeli communities."
How should we prepare?
"First, understand and define that we are now in an emergency. On-call squads in localities are insufficient. At the same time, the army must create an offensive capability and take over Area A, from which a deterioration may develop. We also need to develop an active defense capability for the communities themselves."
What is active defense capability?
"A few things: The alert squads need to be turned into alert departments and they also need to be equipped, especially in large communities, according to the army's standard and stop arguing with them. Equip them with grenades, MAGs, simple shoulder-fired missiles, and recognize their training routine. They must practice. After that, it is also necessary to create the ability of a military force, a sector, to each locality, and where possible – to create the ability to connect neighboring communities that will help each other in times of distress. These communication capabilities also need to be practiced, and the army, on its part, must be prepared to act not only within the community, but against the source from which this attack will come, God forbid."
Why do you think the IDF and security forces are currently obscuring, not to mention hiding, the complicity of Fatah members and the security forces in terrorist attacks and shooting incidents?
"We have two clear future clashes. One with our good friend the United States, because of its concept of two states for two peoples, and a renewed Palestinian Authority headed by someone who will speak words of peace and reconciliation from mouth to mouth, and the other with the Palestinian Authority itself or its remnants. The ambiguity and concealment stem from an understandable desire and interest to postpone these clashes, not to precede them."
Dayton's regiments
In recent weeks, videos have been posted online showing the training of the Palestinian PA battalions, which are oppressive to watch. The battalions in the videos look like an army training for confrontation and war. The training is very similar to those of the IDF, sometimes even training some of its elite units.
The battalions' training includes a week of war and company training and a walking tour of dozens of kilometers in northern Samaria, as well as fighting in built-up areas, exercises to take over targets and more. It is unclear what the connection is between the definition of a "strong police force" whose role is to impose "public order and internal security" (as formulated in the Oslo Accords when the PA was established) and these forces, which are part of the 45,<> members of the PA's apparatuses.
The battalions were formed years ago, after the second intifada, by American General Keith Dayton. Their main training facility is at the military academy in Jericho, but they also trained under American supervision in Jordan, and in the past British and Italian instructors participated in their training.
All this is taking place against the backdrop of the massacre in the envelope, and at the same time, in the past two months, videos have been created on social networks, using artificial intelligence, to simulate raids on communities in Judea and Samaria. These videos encourage the Palestinian population in Judea and Samaria to demolish the fences and walls of the communities and break into them. If you add to this the renewed complicity of parts of Fatah and its organizations in terrorism, and the support for Gaza and Hamas' action, as it emerges from many street marches and demonstrations, you get a worrying picture.
The many statements made by senior Fatah figures regarding the massacre are also far from reassuring, on the contrary. Mueed Shaaban, Minister of Struggle against Settlements, attended the funeral of terrorists killed in battle in Nur ash Shams refugee camp, where soldier Maxim Rezhnikov was killed. Twelve terrorists were killed in this incident, including a PA officer who participated in shooting at the soldiers. Abbas Zaki, a member of Fatah's Central Committee, thanked Hamas for the attack and threatened to smash the skulls of all Jews and Americans in the region. Abd al-Rahman Abu al-Rab, a Fatah member from Jenin, defined the massacre as a morning of joy, victory and pride, and congratulated the "heroic martyrs in Gaza." Jamal al-Hawail, a Fatah council member in the PA, promised a big surprise in Judea and Samaria as well and hoped that the scenes in Gaza would return in the West Bank as well. Tirawi and Jibril Rajoub, already mentioned, added their own fuel to the fire, and world prisoner Marwan Barghouti, one of the leaders of the second intifada, called this week from prison for his movement, Fatah, to organize comprehensive resistance on all Palestinian lands.
In the meantime, the political-security cabinet has refrained from delving into the danger of turning the barrels. Even the overall situation, which was relatively detailed, presented here, was not presented to the ministers. This became clear this week in response to a question by Minister Orit Struk at a meeting of the socioeconomic cabinet, which discussed the issue of workers entering Israel from Judea and Samaria. Strzok warned of a scenario in which a deadly incident develops within minutes, and even named localities that are more prone to such a scenario. She even suggested considering placing tanks in some places. In a discussion this week in the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Prime Minister Netanyahu tried to calm things down, saying that if Palestinian Authority security forces openly turned against Israel, "within a few minutes there will be helicopters in the air responding in response."
"The Girl Scouts" warn
Meanwhile, concern is growing in Jewish communities. About a month ago, women of recruits from Tekoa, Binyamin and Samaria established the "Scopus" organization, whose name corresponds, not coincidentally, with the story of the female observers on the eve of the war. The Girl Scouts also ask to be listened to and their warnings. The accelerator for the establishment of the organization was the olive harvest events, in which they approached the fences of the communities, often in a threatening manner, even those that did not deal with the olive harvest.
Hadas Madmon of Migdalim, one of the founders of Scopus, says that the events of the olive harvest led to the fall of the token: "The perception of security here has not changed after October 7. At first there was a feeling that 'the landlord had gone crazy,' but that passed very quickly and again the Palestinians went back to blinding us on the roads with lasers, playing games with us, testing boundaries with us. Last Thursday, shots were fired from a drive-by under the community.
"We are definitely afraid of an event similar to the enveloping event, here in Israel," she says, "for 30 years we nurtured the Oslo monster and armed them. Some of the terrorists who were released returned to the villages near us. The danger also lurks in Kfar Saba, Rosh HaAyin and others like them on the seamline."
Two weeks ago, the Scopus met with the Commander-in-Chief, Yehuda Fuchs. "He was attentive and respectful," Madmon says, "but he also made it clear to us that he carries out government policy, and the policy at the moment is that the PA is our partner. Governance is critical everywhere, but especially among those who are more exposed to threats, like us."
Is the reeds reversal scenario in the PA really imminent? Partially? Full? Facing localities? Facing the IDF? The many warning signs that we have presented here are enough to turn on a huge red light for decision makers in the military and political echelons, which are now preoccupied mainly with the two main fronts in the north and south, and are not free to conduct an in-depth discussion on the third front as well.
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