Al-Quds Al-Arabi Warns Israel’s Shin Bet Faces Intensifying Jewish Terrorism In West Bank

A West Asian analysis in Al-Quds Al-Arabi argues that Israel’s security framework has long assumed “the main threats come from abroad,” but says an “internal threat has begun to intensify” as settler violence in the West Bank shifts from “locally disorganized groups” into a more cohesive system with a digital presence since October 7.

The piece says that “For the first time since 1967, the number of Jewish terrorist operations surpassed the number of Palestinian terrorist operations in the occupied territories,” and it frames the gap between law and enforcement as a problem for Shin Bet, especially after David Barnea took office.

Fondation Jean-Jaurès

It also warns that ongoing violence could “ignite a new Palestinian intifada,” harm Israeli–Palestinian security cooperation, and “possibly spill inside Israel,” while deepening Israel’s isolation abroad.

In that same argument, the author says the responsibility for countering internal threats lies with the Shin Bet, which by law has broad powers to protect the state from “terrorism, sabotage, and espionage,” but that “in practice, there is a gap between the legal framework and its implementation.”

In a separate account by Ahmad Tibi in alencontre, Israel in 2025 is described as facing “a generalized and systemic context of racist and ultranationalist violence aimed at Arab citizens,” with the “muteness of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu” portrayed as “a boost to the thugs who commit these assaults.”

Tibi links assaults on Arab bus drivers in Greater Jerusalem to prolonged incitement and normalization, and cites the Tel Aviv attack on Mohammed Abu Hamed, who “had to be hospitalized,” as well as a Jerusalem attack on Khalil al-Rishq, where “his ribs and teeth were broken by Jewish attackers.”

Haaretz

The article says the wave of violence is “closely linked” to “Jewish terrorism against Palestinians in the occupied territories,” and argues that whoever assaults a Palestinian in the West Bank knowing they will not be punished will “also feel free to assault a garbage collector or a bus driver in Jerusalem or a family in Jaffa.”

Tibi also targets policing and media framing, writing that under the leadership of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, “the police are not the solution but part of the problem,” and adding that silence is treated as consent: “Silence is consent, and consent implies complicity.”

Ouest-France reports that after a settler attack wounded two Israeli pacifist activists in the northern occupied West Bank, President Isaac Herzog condemned the “violences” that “strongly contrast with the values of the State of Israel.”

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Haaretz

The same report says the attack took place on the land of the Palestinian village of Qusra, and it quotes B’Tselem describing the “rampaging attacks carried out by settlers across the West Bank” as “state violence,” carried out “with full backing, participation and support from the state authorities.”

A TRT Français report adds that 200 Israeli reservists sent a letter on Friday to Defense Minister Yisrael Katz and Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir expressing “deep concern over the recent incidents of Jewish terrorism,” and it says the soldiers warned that violence against Palestinians has intensified.

In the Fondation Jean-Jaurès analysis, Reem Cohen argues that the scale of Jewish terrorism against Palestinians in Judea and Samaria has moved “from marginal, localized incidents to a generalized phenomenon,” and it cites an IDF Central Command report of “an increase of about 27% in nationalist crimes in 2025 (around 870 incidents).”

That same Fondation Jean-Jaurès text says UN OCHA documented “about 1,420 attacks against Palestinians” in 2024, resulting in “the deaths of 5 Palestinians,” “about 350 injured,” and “the expulsion of more than 300 Palestinian families (about 1,700 people).”