BICOM

What happened: This morning an Israeli woman has been killed and a second person seriously wounded, shot whilst driving in the south Hebron hills in the West Bank.

• On Saturday afternoon two Israeli men, a father and his adult son, were shot dead at a carwash in Huwara.
• The terrorist approached them and spoke to them briefly, presumably to confirm they were Israeli Jews, before revealing a pistol and shooting them at point-blank range. He discarded his weapon and fled the scene on foot.
• Shay Silas Nigrekar, 60, and his son, 28-year-old Aviad Nir, drove from Ashdod on Saturday morning to a car garage in Huwara that Shay had used before, and then went on to have the car cleaned.
• At the time, the IDF was not deployed in large numbers in the vicinity. Only later were additional troops sent in to Huwara in order to secure the main road that runs through the village, when religious Jewish travel resumed after the Sabbath ended on Saturday night.
• The IDF launched a manhunt and later on Saturday IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Halevi visited the site of the attack alongside senior commanders and deploying troops to ensure there would be no clashes between Palestinians and settlers.
• In a separate incident, last night an Israeli man accidentally drove into the village of Turmus Ayya, in area A of the West Bank. He was attacked with rocks and lightly wounded. Local residents assisted him and he was extricated by IDF soldiers who responded to the call very quickly. Rioters then set his car on fire.
• In addition, there have been two incidents in the last 24 hours where the IDF has downed unmanned aerial vehicles launched by Hamas from the Gaza Strip. Yesterday an Iron Dome battery fired two missiles at a drone, which did not cross into Israeli territory. A similar incident repeated itself this morning.

Israeli context: Since the beginning of the year, 34 people (32 Israelis, an Italian tourist and one worker from Gaza) have been killed in terror attacks, including seven members of the security forces. A further 110 people have been injured.

• The Palestinian village of Huwara sits on the main road used by both by Palestinians and Jews to access the northern West Bank. Part of the village is area C (full Israeli control), part area B (Palestinian civil authority, Israeli security). Unlike area A (full PA civil and security) it is not illegal for Israelis to enter Huwara, and the carwash had signs in Hebrew.
• In February this year two brothers – Hallel Yaniv, 21 and Yagel Yaniv, 19 – were killed driving through Huwara. This precipitated revenge attacks by dozens of Israeli settler youth who violently rioted, setting fire to Palestinian property and vehicles.
• Today’s attack was the fourth shooting attack in August after a Tel Aviv municipality patrolman Amit Chen was shot and killed two weeks ago while preventing a much larger attack.
• There was also a shooting attack in Mishur Adumim, east of Jerusalem at the beginning of the month that injured five people.
• The Israeli government remains divided on their approach to the Palestinians, with the security establishment advocating confidence building measures to support the Palestinian Authority (PA). Ministers Smotrich and Ben Gvir have advocated its collapse, and aspire to annexation. This split is one of the reasons why Prime Minister Netanyahu has rarely convened the security cabinet.
• However, last week, even Smotrich gave his consent for the settler outpost of Aira Shahar to be destroyed as it was built on private Palestinian land. He faced backlash from religious leaders from his own camp.

Palestinian context: Mahmoud Abbas, the Chairman of the PA who will soon turn 87, has had a relatively productive summer so far. Facing ongoing criticism for corruption and collaboration with Israel, he reasserted his internal control, held several diplomatic meetings and chaired a reconciliation conference with Hamas.

• At the end of July Abbas visiting Jenin for the time in over a decade, where he started to re-establish his authority arresting some members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
• Earlier in August he sacked a dozen regional governors, include the governors of Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarm, Qalqilya, Bethlehem, Hebron and Jericho. He also fired four governors on behalf of the PA in Gaza, but as Hamas are in control this was seen purely symbolic.
• On the diplomatic front Abbas has met with several regional leaders including Turkish President Erdogan. He also met Egyptian President Sisi and King Abdullah II of Jordan at a three-way summit in El-Alamein, Egypt.
• At the end of last week Abbas convened the latest attempt at Palestinian reconciliation, hosting a conference alongside Hamas leadership, also in El-Alamein.
• The prospect of Smotrich and Ben Gvir influencing West Bank policy, plus the possibility of Israel-Saudi Arabia normalisation, has triggered renewed activity to stay relevant, including efforts to once more try creating a mechanism for talks towards reconciliation.
• Hamas has maintained its balance of paying lip service to reconciliation, maintaining order in Gaza whist seeking to undermine stability in the West Bank and encourage terror attacks.

Looking ahead: The IDF manhunt continues. Based on previous attacks, intelligence services are usually able to locate and apprehend the assailants.

• The alert remains raised over concern of further potential copycat attacks.
• PA Chairman Abbas will head the committee to select the new regional governors.