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What happened: An organisation called the “Ayyash Battalion,” affiliated to the military wing of Hamas, launched two rockets from the Jenin area towards the Israeli community of Moshav Ram On, just north of the West Bank on Monday.

• The rudimentary rockets exploded in the air inside uninhabited Palestinian Authority (PA) territory.
• The IDF found rockets intact and without warheads, one which had fallen after five metres and the other after 80 metres. The IDF also found the launchers.
• Hamas’s military wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, released footage and afterwards issued a statement, “It is only a matter of time until you hear of additional Ayyash and Qassam rockets that will destroy your strongholds. Soon alerts and warnings will be heard in the West Bank, and these will dictate a new stage of development and clashes with the Zionist occupier. Occupied Tel Aviv is not far away, and will be within firing range of the fighters.”

Context: Whilst these rockets are basic, unsophisticated and do not pose the same risks as the rockets out of Gaza Strip, the potential for technical development of rockets from the West Bank is cause for great concern.

• The first rockets fired from the Gaza Strip were in 2001. Since then, far more potent rockets have developed with a longer range and larger warheads.
• The situation would be compounded in the West Bank due to the close proximity to large Israeli population centres.
• Israeli intelligence has been wary of the potential threat of producing rockets for several years, but have only recently noticed an increased effort to develop these capabilities.
• Two months ago the head of the Shin Bet Ronen Bar revealed that they had arrested a terror cell in Jenin that had planned to fire rockets out of Jenin.
• This is the second such incident, last month the IDF found a rocket launcher after a similar video was posted online.
• This threat can also be seen in parallel to last week’s improvised explosive device (IED) which targeted IDF vehicles leaving Jenin and wounded six soldiers.
• The Ayyash Battalion is named after the notorious Hamas terrorist Yahya Ayyash, known as ‘the engineer’. He was Hamas’s top bombmaker in the 1990s before being killed by Israel after he was handed a mobile phone which was detonated remotely.

West Bank policy: The Israeli government appears to be split, between manging the conflict and cooperating with the PA and on the other hand, hard right politicians that want to weaken the PA and annex territory.

• This distinction can also be seen in their attitude towards settlers rioting and attacking Palestinians.
• Last night the prime minister convened a meeting to discuss settler violence where heads of security establishment heavily criticised the stance of Minister Ben Gvir.
• While earlier, Minister of Defence Gallant spoke with Minister of Civil Affairs in the PA, Hussein Al-Sheik, his first interaction with a senior PA official.
• According to Gallant’s office, he “emphasised the need to restore stability in the area, for the benefit of both the Jewish and Palestinian residents…. Minister Gallant also noted that the defence establishment views the recent violence against Palestinian civilians with great concern and emphasised that the State of Israel will take action to bring the perpetrators to justice.”
• Defence Minister Gallant concluded by “wishing Minister Al-Sheik a happy Eid al-Adha, and conveyed his wishes that the holiday will serve as an opportunity to strengthen security and stability in the region.”
• Also yesterday, President Herzog called the Head of the PA Mahmoud Abbas to also convey his greetings on the occasion of The Feast of Sacrifice, Eid al-Adha. “President Herzog emphasised in their conversation the importance of a forceful, persistent war against terror, incitement and hatred and he underscored the horrendous price and pain which terror inflicts upon bereaved families and Israeli society as a whole. The President reiterated the need to act fiercely to thwart terror which harms individuals, families and communities, as well as the chance to live peacefully, side by side, in the region and the broader Middle East. The President further underlined his unequivocal denouncement of the recent assault on innocent Palestinians by extremists.”
• Last night Foreign Minister Cohen spoke to US Secretary of State Blinken. Blinken said the US appreciated the condemnations of settler violence by the prime minister, the foreign minister and the defence minister, but that it expected Israel to do more.

Looking ahead: The security establishment views these rockets as a warning that Hamas and other groups continue to develop their capacity.

• Debate is continuing whether Israel will need to launch a more substantial military operation in Jenin. Whilst there is little appetite to occupy PA controlled areas, they could send in a large number of troops that would carry out targeted raids against terrorist infrastructure, over a period of a day or two and then leave.

• There is already an expanded presence of IDF troops deployed in the West Bank, in an effort to reassure the Israeli residents and serve as a deterrent to further attacks.