The tumultuous weekend Israel has weathered showed that while Ramadan was behind us, the road ahead – and especially Nakba Day and Jerusalem Day – remains fickle and volatile.
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There are many elements that seek to prevent normalcy from becoming the order of the day, chiefly terrorist groups that spare no effort to fan the flames in recent weeks.
This was evident in the deadly counterterrorism raid in Jenin in which Warrant Officer Noam Raz was killed Friday. The gunfight was described by officers on the ground as "unprecedented" in its intensity – something that attests not only to the vast arsenal the terrorists have but also to their willingness to use it.
This requires Israel to again consider whether it is time to change its modus operandi in Jenin and transition from intelligence-based pinpointed operations to larger assaults. There was a calculated decision to avoid the latter during Ramadan out of concern that the already precarious situation in Jenin – a known Islamic Jihad stronghold – would erupt and take the rest of the West Bank, as well as the Gaza Strip, with it.
Israel would prefer to keep events contained to the city, but the gunmen there may not leave it a choice.
In that respect, Raz's death is Israel's best answer to those who claim it deliberately killed Al-Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh in a raid in Jenin last week. Operational activity is dangerous to those who take part in it as well as to bystanders. The IDF assumes massive risks to avoid placing civilians in harm's way and at times, Israeli troops are made to pay the ultimate price.
Military ethics aside, this is not without operational and intelligence value. A terrorist who is captured alive – as was the case on Friday – is a wealthy source of information about weapons, attacks in the making, and other terrorist cells. This information usually cannot be obtained otherwise and it is crucial to foiling future terrorist attacks.
The IDF was right to release the results of the initial investigation into Abu Akleh's death, which clarified that barring the Palestinian Authority's cooperation, definitively deciding culpability would be impossible. This, of course, will do little to convince those who have blamed Israel otherwise. The world has already rushed to denounce Israel and has not bothered to acknowledge the reasons the IDF was and is operating in Jenin to begin with – Palestinian terrorism against Israel.
The nature of the news cycle is such that these stories run their course and disappear. Global public opinion is more concerned with the Russia-Ukraine war, but it is still a shame that Israel gave its distractors more to chew on with the debacle at her funeral.
Even if the family had failed to live up to the deal reached with Israel over the funeral, one would expect that Israeli police forces would be able to contain what happened there a tad better. The police review of what happened at the funeral is warranted if only so future such incidents could be avoided.
Political and security tensions only help those who seek to exploit the situation for political gain. Those who can should be wise to act to de-escalate the situation or see Israel slide rapidly into conflict against enemies foreign and – even worse – domestic.
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