The escape of the six terrorists from Gilboa prison in September 2021 was the catalyst for the establishment of the new terrorist groups in the northern West Bank, according to senior Islamic Jihad officials.
The initiative to establish new armed groups was undertaken by the Islamic Jihad organization in coordination with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, in fact it is the implementation of the strategy established by General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the “Quds Force” of the Revolutionary Guards who was assassinated in Iraq by the US Army, of using proxies to achieve the goals of expansion of the Iranian regime.
After arming Hamas and the Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, Iran moved in the last year to support the new terrorist groups in the northern West Bank, Iran poured money into the Islamic Jihad organization which began to establish new armed groups under the name of “Battalions” that also include terrorists from other organizations such as, Fatah, Hamas and the Popular Front.
First, the terrorist group called the “Jenin Battalion” was established in the city of Jenin, after which the phenomenon spread to the city of Nablus, where the Nablus Battalion” group was established”.
According to security sources in Israel, the person who helped lay the infrastructure for the establishment of the new terrorist groups in the northern West Bank was Sheikh Bassam al-Saadi from the city of Jenin, a senior member of the Islamic Jihad organization who was arrested by the Shin Bet and is currently on trial in a military court.
Despite the large scale operation of arrests by the IDF and the Shin Bet in the West Bank the Islamic Jihad organization continues to form new terrorist groups, in Tulkarem a group of armed men called the “Tulkarem Battalion” was formed, in the town of Tubas the “Tubas Battalion” was formed and in the Balata refugee camp the terrorist group called the “Balata Battalion” was formed.
Iran also stands behind the arming of the new terrorist groups of the Islamic Jihad and is pouring in money to purchase the weapons and smuggle them into the northern West Bank.
Last August, General Hussein Salami hosted the Islamic Jihad’s General Secretary Ziyad Al-Nakhallah at the Revolutionary Guards headquarters to discuss the state of the organization following the military operation of the IDF in the Gaza Strip, according to sources in the Gaza Strip, at the meeting it was agreed to strengthen the organization’s activities in the northern West Bank.
In an interview he gave the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s website, General Hossein Salami announced that Iran will arm the “resistance” forces in the West Bank as it did in the Gaza Strip and that the process has already begun.
He added that the campaign against Israel will be expanded from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank and that there is no difference between them.
He mocked Israel for not being able to stop the flow of weapons into the West Bank and said that “it cannot be safe from Palestinian fire”.
He added that the Gaza Strip is not the only battlefield of the resistance and that the struggle has now moved to the West Bank.
In a lecture he gave at the INSS Institute last week, the head of the Israeli Intelligence Forces, Major General Aharon Haliva, confirmed Iran’s involvement in the current wave of terrorism in the West Bank.
Iran is now playing on all the fields in the Middle East and is working against Israel on all fronts.
The activity in field of the West Bank is another step in the tightening of the stranglehold around Israel, the current wave of terrorism in the West Bank employs half of the IDF’s forces and is seriously harming the ability of the regular army units to train and maintain their operational competence, and Iran sees this wave of terrorism as another move to weaken Israel.
