On Monday, the IDF and other security forces’ operations in Jenin in the northern West Bank got out of hand.
Will the IDF finally be drawn into a larger operation to clean-house in Jenin?
They got out of hand both because dozens of Palestinians were wounded and five killed in order to arrest two suspected terrorists – a result that few would call a success.
The operation got out of hand because the IDF suffered seven wounded, because an armored vehicle was badly damaged and because around seven vehicles were stuck for several hours.
It was also out of hand because the IDF had to use a helicopter firing missiles, even if the missile was fired into an open area.
IDF soldier near Jenin (credit: IDF SPOKESMAN’S UNIT)This is also far from the first operation that went sideways in Jenin.
Since 2022, many incidents led to harm to IDF soldiers
Since 2022 and with several specific major incidents since January of this year, many incidents have led to harm to IDF soldiers and to large volumes of Palestinians which did not seem worth the limited target of the original operation.
The suspected terrorists were wanted, but they were not top officials like the six Islamic Jihad officials in Gaza for whom assassinating them and even some ancillary nearby civilians could be more clearly justified and make sense.
All of the above suggests that the IDF has not only lost control over Jenin, but has lost the capability to reliably run in and out of Jenin with supremacy of control which has characterized the West Bank to date as opposed to Gaza.
In responding to criticism, senior IDF officials cited the increasing number of instances where hundreds of IDF and security forces have gone into West Bank areas to arrest someone or demolish a house.
At that level of forces, and adding in the helicopter action on Monday, it becomes more and more difficult to see what is different from the IDF’s ongoing operations versus a large operation – other than possibly the IDF is in denial.
If there was any sign that the IDF was close to reducing the insurrection or waves of terror from the West Bank dating back to March 2022, then simply saying more of the same, without more or less force, might make sense.
But the current strategy seems to be: we have no idea how to end the waves of terror, but are also afraid to do a bigger operation or to call it a bigger operation.
Part of this could be because top defense officials fear that a bigger operation labeled as such and for longer would end the Palestinian Authority.
They would say this would be much worse than things are now.
At least now, there is sometimes coordination between the PA and Israeli forces against Hamas.
At least now, Hamas cannot take over the West Bank because the PA, however weak, still has more raw power in the West Bank.
These arguments make sense
But as the PA continues to shake to its foundations and as Jenin’s insurrection and some other Palestinian towns’ get more sophisticated, enough to batter armored vehicles and require attack helicopter interventions, if some new strategy is not used, isn’t that West Bank broader collapse into chaos becoming more likely to happen anyway?
The race may be on for the IDF to come up with a better strategy before a larger operation becomes inevitable or before it is too late to prevent a broader West Bank collapse into chaos.
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