The northern West Bank sees rising tensions as Palestinian terror groups expand operations near Tubas, prompting Israeli drone strikes.
Clashes between the IDF and Palestinian gunmen in the area of Tubas and Tammun in the northern West Bank represent another escalation by various groups in the West Bank to expand the area they operate in.
This is part of a wider trend of armed groups, some of them linked to Hamas or Islamic Jihad, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, or various local “battalions” to take over areas in the northern West Bank. Their tactics are changing as they acquire more weapons and also develop more explosive devices.
Tammun is in hill country, a forty-minute drive southeast of Jenin. It is near the large town of Tubas. This area is near a series of large streams and wadis that run down to the Jordan Valley. In essence, Tammun represents one of the large towns in an area that threatens the Jordan Valley.
Southeast of Tammun, the landscape spills out into a series of small communities, such as Hamra and Jiftlik, and then reaches the Jordan Valley. If Palestinian armed groups come to control this area, they will have easier access to the Jordan Valley and may be able to smuggle weapons to threaten traffic on key roads here.
According to the IDF, “As part of counterterrorism activity in the Jordan Valley area, an aircraft struck a number of armed terrorists in the area of the town of Tammun.” While the IDF put out this short statement, the terrorist groups clearly see these clashes as more important.
A long article in the pro-Iranian Al-Mayadeen media took a close look at the clashes around Tammum. It claimed that the “resistance,” a general term for Palestinian armed groups and Iranian-backed proxies, “confronts a military aggression on Tubas and Tammun with explosive devices and bullets… and the occupation bombs the area with drones.”
The use of drone strikes in the Tubas area is a new development. The IDF has been using drone strikes and air strikes more frequently in the West Bank over the past year. This is because the terrorists are growing and innovating. Several years ago, it would have been major news if a drone had been used in a strike on the West Bank.
‘Gazafication’
This represents the “Gazafication” of the northern West Bank. The terrorist groups and Iran, which backed them, want to turn areas from Tulkarm to Qalkiyqa, Jenin, and now Tubas into a kind of new Gaza. In their concept, they will slowly wrest control of this area from the Palestinian Authority and seek to carve out a contiguous zone of conflict.
They will use any vacuum of control to build more improvised explosive devices and to carpet some urban areas with these weapons. The IDF has been active against this kind of threat in areas such as Nur Shams, but in the end, the terrorist threat continues to grow, and shooting attacks are more common.
Al-Mayadeen claimed that “factions” in the area confronted the IDF with rifles, “bullets and explosive devices, and fierce clashes erupted.” The report said that “resistance fighters detonated explosive devices in the occupation vehicles in the Al-Wadi area in the city of Tubas, which led to the damage of a military vehicle.”
In addition, the report adds that “The Qassam Brigades in Tubas announced in a statement that its fighters, along with their brothers in the resistance factions, are engaged in violent clashes with the occupation forces storming the city of Tubas.” It named the “Al-Quds Brigades – Tubas Battalion” as one of the terrorist units in the area. “In turn, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades – Tubas ambushed an Israeli force in the Wadi Tayasir area, and we targeted it with bullets and explosive devices.”
Al-Mayadeen claimed the IDF used a “Zik drone,” which is a Hermes 450, in the clashes. The pro-Iran report noted that this was the first time an IDF drone was used in a strike in this area.
