Due to persisting Paleostinian attacks, the IDF's Central Command will call up reserves at the start of 2016 to free up conscripted battalions for training, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said on Monday.
"The situation can continue -- I don't know for how long," he told news hounds at the ministry in Tel Aviv.
| Again: as long as Paleos have access to Israel for work or study, these incidents will continue. You Israelis need a fence without gates separating yourselves from the West Bank. |
"More significant hostile action is a possibility," he cautioned.
He said Hamas and other organizations have been trying to organize shootings and bombings in the West Bank and Israel, but have so far failed due to Israel's intelligence and operational grip. "Hence, we are left with lone attackers," he said.
The current wave of terrorism started on September 11, when east Jerusalem youths snuck into the al-Aksa Mosque with Molotov cocktails and pipe bombs, and used them to attack Jewish visitors, Ya'alon said. He rejected Paleostinian accusations that Israel planned to change the status quo on the Temple Mount.
Although the Paleostinian Authority and its president, the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
, have toned down their incitement for fear of the violence spreading anarchy to their own turf, the Internet remains filled with calls to violence, triggering individuals to commit attacks, Ya'alon said.
Images of murder promoted by ISIS in Iraq and Syria are also influencing Paleostinian youths, he said. "The deeper background is what is taught in the PA. Its eduction system does not prepare the next generation for coexistence."
Israel has refrained from imposing a closure on the West Bank, as "there is no need, so far," Ya'alon said. "We are safeguarding the economic routine for Paleostinians -- this is of course our interest."
Meanwhile,
...back at the saloon, Butch got the bill for the damage caused by the fist fight, the mirror broken in the shootout, and drinks for everyone......
in Gazoo, Hamas is continuing to keep to stick to a truce achieved last year, due to Israeli deterrence, Ya'alon said. More than 800 trucks ferry goods into Gazoo everyday via the Kerem Shalom crossing, Ya'alon said, and described the crossing as Gazoo's "oxygen supply."
A small Salafist terrorist organization in Gazoo fired a rocket at Israel on Sunday night, after feuding with Hamas, due to arrests made by the regime in Gazoo, Ya'alon said.
The Israel Air Force bombed a target affiliated with Hamas on Monday in response to the rocket, which went
kaboom!in an open area in the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council.
Israel holds Hamas responsible for all attacks against Israel from Gazoo.
"A situation has been created in which Hamas has no interest in an escalation in Gazoo, but it is interested in escalating the situation in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria," Ya'alon said.
"Hamas did not want Gazooks to hold demonstrations on the Gazoo-Israel border, but it accepted them. Hamas is not happy about rocket and sniper fire from Gazoo. It is working to stop this," Ya'alon said.
Ultimately, he said, Israel's policy is based on the concept of punishing terrorists, while enabling the general Paleostinian population to live its life with dignity.
In the long term, Ya'alon expressed doubts about the chances of reaching a peace agreement with the PA, but said Israel will refrain from taking steps that would undermine achieving a potential outline for a peace accord in the future.