Following a recent string of Palestinian attacks on illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, this year has become the deadliest year for the Zionists since 2005. Despite the ferocity of the far-right regime under its Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, "Israel" finds itself incapable of preventing successful operations against its settlers and soldiers, leading the Zionist government to a position where it needs a successful military operation to win back public trust.

After a month of assassinations against Palestinians, from Jenin to Aqabat Jaber refugee camp, over the weekend, Palestinian resistance forces launched a series of shooting attacks towards settlers and soldiers in the occupied West Bank. Following the murder of 12 Palestinians during the invasion of Jenin in early July, the Israeli occupation forces had refrained from operating inside Jenin and outsourced the management of the situation to the Palestinian Authority Security Forces (PASF). However, in early August, a shift suddenly occurred after an undercover special forces unit opened fire on a civilian car and assassinated three Palestinians who were tied to the Jenin Brigades resistance group. Since then, a number of undercover operations have been carried out in the surrounding areas of Jenin, while surveillance drones have monitored the Jenin refugee camp, to which the Palestinian Resistance responded with the downing of an Israeli UAV on Monday.

Since September of 2021, the Jenin Brigades have expanded in size and professionalism significantly, managing to successfully thwart various attempts to crush the Resistance group by the Israelis during the invasion of the outskirts of the camp, back in July. Not only have the Jenin Brigades themselves expanded, but, most crucially, the model for the creation of armed resistance groups has spread its way into the refugee camps of the northern West Bank at large, even spilling over into the Old City of Nablus and Tulkarm. So far, the model of creating numerous armed cells throughout the northern West Bank, attaching them to various root groups, has proven tremendously successful in keeping the armed struggle alive, and even expanding it.

This has meant for Israeli invading forces, that they are faced with gunfire and homemade explosive devices during every aggression into the areas in which the armed groups exist. Earlier this year, the tactic that the Zionist military was using sought to bleed the groups and their surrounding civilian populations through a string of massacres. This strategy, instead of weakening the armed groups, only inspired a greater number of young Palestinians to join the ranks of the Resistance and failed to discourage the civilian populations from supporting the armed groups. 

Although the rise of the armed groups inside the occupied West Bank certainly worries the Zionist Entity, the biggest immediate threat that they face are lone-wolf commando operations against settlers and soldiers. These kinds of attacks are nearly impossible to anticipate, given that there is usually no intelligence which can work to predict the actions of individuals who plan these attacks. These kinds of attacks have resulted in the majority of the 34 Israelis killed so far this year - the real statistic is likely slightly higher as "Israel" covers up its soldier deaths - and don’t provide the Israeli military with anyone to truly take out revenge upon. If the lone perpetrator is either killed or arrested by the Zionist occupation forces, this is the end of the story, which is why the Israeli media and military are putting so much focus on the Jenin Brigades and other armed groups, because they can claim revenge by killing members of the groups; despite them usually having nothing to do with the attacks.

At this point, the Israeli intelligence and military have failed to arrest or kill those responsible for the following acts: 

1. The Huwara attack on August 19

2. The Haramesh attack on May 30

3. The Ya’bad attack on June 13 

4. The Al-Khalil (Hebron) attack on August 21 

5. The Tubas gunfire exchange on May 11

6. The Beit Ummar gunfire exchange on April 5

7. The Jordan Valley attack on August 2

8. The Fajr armed group’s series of attacks against Zionist forces in the past months

For the Israelis, launching an all-out attack on the Jenin refugee camp may well be an option that they are studying, yet it will come at a definite price to their own forces, and if the invasion grows in size, it could trigger a series of popular actions across the West Bank, perhaps even more attacks. Any invasion of the Jenin refugee camp also puts the Palestinian Authority in a bad position, as it is faced with the choice as to whether it should hide its forces inside its headquarters and refrain from fighting, or it engaging the Israeli invading forces directly. Both of these options for the PA are going to mean some level of sacrifice, if its forces confront the Israelis they are going to receive a major blow from their European and American allies, while remaining peaceful and taking the legal route through the United Nations will spark backlash in the West Bank. 

A number of attacks have now been claimed and directly carried out by the Hamas armed wing, Al-Qassam, in the West Bank. It would seem as if the Zionist media are building a case for some level of action against Hamas on these grounds, yet, an attack on Gaza may prove unsuccessful at achieving a domestic PR victory, which is what the Netanyahu administration is truly after. The Israeli regime seeks to perpetuate the idea that it maintains some kind of “deterrence capacity”, making this believable to the Zionist public. However, the Israeli people do not tolerate soldier deaths, and a high soldier death toll would defeat the purpose of any intended military action.

If the Zionist entity picks Gaza as its next target, it is unlikely that this will work out to prove the capabilities of the occupation army at all. There is no way of them going in on the ground in Gaza without suffering significant combatant casualties, and even the isolated targeting of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in the besieged coastal enclave failed to achieve a clear victory earlier this year. It simply took the careful strategic implementation of timed strikes, with only a few direct missile hits at crucial periods of the battle for the goals of the Zionist attack to fail. If Hamas is to be directly involved in the next confrontation, the firepower that "Israel" will face will be considerably greater.

Another option, which could be on the books, is to attempt to launch strikes into southern Lebanon in order to specifically target Palestinians. It is conceivable that the Israeli regime could believe that in the event that it assassinates Palestinian leaders inside Lebanon, that the retaliation would only be limited, as compared to if they directly targeted Hezbollah. This belief could come from the results of its attacks on PIJ inside the Gaza Strip, whereby the response is coordinated with the more powerful Hamas, but the full power of Al-Qassam is not put on display and the battle is therefore limited.

If Benjamin Netanyahu chooses an aggression against Lebanon, he could claim to be doing something to combat Hezbollah’s tents in the Shebaa farms, like he claimed that the Israeli air force had targeted Hezbollah, Hamas and PIJ, after they struck banana trees earlier this year. The distortions and lies of the Zionist leaders, regarding what their military actually achieved, is normally taken at face value by the Israeli public. Yet, this kind of strategy, which would carry with it the biggest PR victory potential, could also carry the greatest price. If Hezbollah is dragged into an open confrontation, even if limited, there will be no doubt that Israeli casualties will be high.

The Zionist regime has painted itself into a corner. Gaza and Lebanon are now high-risk targets, containing considerable resistance forces, these are places where the Israeli ground forces will not dare to enter. The West Bank is now witnessing the revival of the armed struggle and even combating the Jenin Brigades will come at a cost, yet, the Zionist entity refuses to accept its limitations and is consistently provoking the different fronts, whether that be through its new illegal blue-line violating separation wall along the Lebanon-Palestine border, its provocations at al-Aqsa Mosque, or its massacres in the West Bank. It is as if the Israeli regime cannot accept that its days of expanding its territory are numbered, and the more it pushes, the more backlash it will face. "Tel Aviv" no longer holds the position it did in the 1970s and 1980s. It has no deterrence power, and it has no ground force of any significance, its population will not tolerate combatant casualties also, which limits the powers of the occupation military even further. If an escalation is sparked by the Netanyahu regime, the chances are, it turns out to be a setback, rather than a victory.