IDF Ends Large-scale Exercise in Judea and Samaria

March 30, 2017

by: Yoav Zitun & Elior Levy

Thursday, 30 March 2017 | Security forces in Israel have been stepping up their preparedness prior to Passover and Independence Day which are considered highly volatile times, vis-à-vis possible terrorist attacks. In an effort to foresee the different possible scenarios of attack and respond to them successfully, hundreds of IDF [Israel Defense Forces] reserves officers ended a four-day exercise on Wednesday throughout the West Bank[Judea and Samaria]—the first to be conducted in the region in the last five years.

As the exercise was being carried out, Hamas leaders continued to threaten a response to the assassination of Mazan Fukha, one of its leaders believed to have been killed by Israel. As a result, a billboard was posted in the South Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis, with the words “We accept the challenge” written on it in Hebrew. The warning was a quote of Hamas leader Khaled Mashal who recently made it known that Hamas is now “in an all-out war with the criminal enemy.”

“The enemy uprooted one of our heroes in Gaza,” Mashal said on Monday in a public speech he gave in Gaza. Referring to Israel, he added that “it settled the score with one of our own who was released from prison. It’s an open battle and we, the leaders, accept the challenge. If the enemy changes their tactic, we will accept it and bear the responsibility to protect our brothers and sisters. We are sticking to the fight to free our prisoners (from Israeli prisons—ed), to free Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa.

“Our willpower is stronger than their weapons. We’ll beat them in the end,” added Mashal. After another Hamas leader, Osama Hamdan, was assassinated, he promised that the repercussions for Israel “will be worse than Israel can imagine.”

The IDF forces that carried out the four-day exercise prepared for various scenarios, among them Israeli abductions, bomb and vehicular attacks, riots and shooting attacks combined with settlement infiltrations. The exercise was supposed to have taken place a month and a half ago, but was postponed due to the Amona evacuation.

Shin Bet Director Nadav Argaman warned earlier this month the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the current calm in violence is “deceiving,” warning Hamas and other organized terror cells will try to carry out attacks over the Passover holiday.

“We’re coming on Passover. There is no doubt that terror cells, particularly the organized one with an emphasis on Hamas, will try to provoke violence and carry out terror attacks,” Argaman told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

“Hamas and Islamic Jihad’s terror cells are trying every day to carry out attacks within the State of Israel, and we are working day and night in an effort to thwart them,” he added.

Posted on March 30, 2017

Source: (Ynetnews originally published this article on 29 March 2017. Time-related language has been modified to reflect our republication today. See original article at this link.)

Photo Credit: IDF Spokesperson's Unit