Israel is leveraging the current war against Hamas, Hezbollah, and its Iranian-led allies to carry out a campaign of targeted eliminations against entities involved in terrorist activities in the West Bank. Israeli operations have eliminated members of Palestinian terrorist groups that orchestrate West Bank violence in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon.
On August 21, Khalil al-Maqdah, a Fatah leader and one of the founders of al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, died when a missile hit his vehicle in the city of Sidon, Lebanon. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
confirmed the targeting and accused Maqdah of smuggling weapons to terrorist groups in the West Bank and organizing terror attacks.
Earlier this year, the Israeli military
implicated Khalil’s brother, Mounir al-Maqdah, in transferring weapons to terrorist groups in the West Bank and fomenting violence under the direction of Hezbollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Following Khalil’s death, Mounir affirmed the IDF’s suspicion,
saying that his sibling was “responsible for transferring weapons to the Resistance inside Palestine.”
The killing of Mounir is undoubtedly not a one-off event after Hamas’s terrorist attack on October 7. It’s only the latest in a string of targeted killings against individuals who are actively supporting, plotting, and carrying out terrorist attacks against Israelis in the West Bank.