Countdown to Chaos: How Iran Is Engineering a Gaza-Style Collapse in the Heart of the West Bank

On November 12, 2025 Arutz 7 reported "Report: Iran flooding Judea and Samaria with advanced weapons. Washington Free Beacon reveals Iran is arming Judea and Samaria terror cells with drones, rockets, and explosives to replicate Oct. 7...Iran has significantly escalated its efforts to arm terrorist proxies in Judea and Samaria, quietly smuggling advanced weaponry into the territory in recent months, according to Israeli intelligence centers and regional analysts quoted in a Washington Free Beacon report on Tuesday.

" The goal, according to the sources, is to transform the area into a Gaza-style terrorist hub capable of replicating Hamas’s October 7 massacre. Following the Trump-backed ceasefire between Israel and Hamas last month, Islamic Jihad shifted its operational focus to Judea and Samaria. While Islamic Jihad remains the most active Iranian proxy in cities such as Hebron, Shechem (Nablus), Jenin, and Jericho, it is joined by factions from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Hamas’s local cells - 28 groups in total, according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).

"These terror groups have acquired weaponry previously unseen in Judea and Samaria, including explosive drones, anti-tank missiles, rocket-propelled grenades, and advanced rockets. The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center reported that Hamas declared that Judea and Samaria would “continue to be a leading arena of resistance” immediately after the October 10 ceasefire.

"Recent IDF operations have intercepted Iranian arms shipments, including a drone carrying 10 guns from Jordan and an October delivery from Iran’s Quds Force containing 15 anti-tank rockets, 29 explosive charges, four armed drones, and assorted firearms. Iran is now attempting to funnel weapons through Jordan and Lebanon. Israeli forces thwarted two Quds Force smuggling attempts from Lebanon in July, the Amit Center reported..."

MEMRI reported " Iranian IRGC Commander Hossein Salami: 'Invisible Hands Armed The West Bank – And You [Now] See Modern Automatic Rifles And Automatic Weapons In The Hands Of The Palestinians'...

In an April 18, 2023 speech for Iran's Military Day, Hossein Salami, commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), said that "invisible hands" – hinting at the Iranian regime – are arming Palestinian organizations with automatic weapons against Israel. Salami's statements came several days after rockets were fired into Israel from Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza and Israeli civilians were killed in shooting attacks during the Passover holiday... It should be noted that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has been issuing instructions to arm the West Bank since July 2014..."

Who will prevent Palestinians from smuggling more weapons into Judea and Samaria if Israel withdraws?

If a Palestinian State is formed in Judea and Samaria, Jordan will not be able to prevent weapon smuggling. Most of the Jordanian population and political leaders will be sympathetic with the Palestinian government. If the Hashemite King tries to prevent weapon smuggling into the West Bank, the Jordanian population and the Jordanian Parliament will revolt against the King.

Contrary to Egypt, the Jordanian Government does not have the popular or political support to oppose Hamas. The Hashemite Kingdom will not have the political or popular support to prevent weapon smuggling into Judea and Samaria if a Palestinian State is formed there.

If a Palestinian State is created it will be ruled by Hamas (under the name Hamas or another name). Who would prevent Hamas from smuggling weapons (perhaps even a nuclear dirty bomb) into Judea and Samaria if Israel withdraws?

If Israel withdraws from Judea and Samaria who guarantees Judea and Samaria will not become a new Gaza?

Hamas is planning to take over the West Bank. Hamas repeatedly declared they will use Judea and Samaria to attack Israel as they do from Gaza. Surrendering Judea and Samaria will be suicidal for Israel. Hamas will attack Israel from Judea and Samaria as they do from Gaza making normal life in Israel impossible.

On September 21, 2022 JNS reported "According to Col. (res.) Grisha Yakubovich, an expert on Israeli-Palestinian relations and a senior fellow at the MirYam Institute, the mounting attacks are part of a larger trend of the growing dominance of Hamas rhetoric in Judea and Samaria and an ongoing battle for Palestinian hearts and minds based on the message that violence achieves results and that negotiations and diplomacy do not..."

[ raises the possibility that perhaps there are]

“...preparations by Hamas to attempt a repeat of their 2007 takeover of Gaza – this time in Judea and Samaria,” Yakubovich cautioned..."

According to recent pools Hamas is the most likely successor of Abbas (who is 87). On June 29, 2022 World Israel News reported "A new poll of Palestinians in the Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip released on Tuesday shows that the Islamist organization Hamas has edged ahead of Fatah, the PLO’s main nationalist faction, in terms of public support, though backing for both groups is in decline. The survey conducted by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) revealed that 33 percent of Palestinians believe that Hamas should be leading the Palestinian struggle, with only 23 percent opting for Fatah under its current leader, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who has clung to his post since 2005."

Hamas is the most likely successor of Abbas, once Hamas takes power in the West Bank it will attack Israel from the West Bank as it does from Gaza. The Palestinian Media Watch translated an interview by one of Hamas founders Mahmoud al-Zahar to the Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam in which he said “transfer what it has [in Gaza] or just a small part of it to the West Bank, we would be able to settle the battle of the 'final promise [to destroy Israel] with a speed that no one can imagine...[Some] have said Hamas wants to create an Islamic emirate in Gaza. We won’t do that, but we will build an Islamic state in Palestine, all of Palestine...”

The creation of a Palestinian State in Judea and Samaria will endanger Israel's defensible borders. Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser explained in the JCPA "Israel has a very narrow width and a small population compared with that of its current and potential adversaries. It lacks strategic depth and its armed forces have to rely on reservists to be able to perform its mission, especially in time of war. Its most densely populated areas are very close to territories populated by people who have been exposed to ongoing hate indoctrination against it. The topography along the center of the country includes a mountain ridge that overlooks and dominates the coastal plain in the west and the very deep Jordan Valley in the east.

The regimes and countries around Israel suffer from inherent instability and some of them are failed states. Some of Israel’s enemies are determined to wipe it off the map. Moreover, some of these enemies, especially Iran, have vast resources and are able to acquire advanced weaponry either through arms purchases from leading arms producers or through local production. All of these components have to be taken into account while drawing Israel’s defensible borders.

"It is true, of course, that Israel has impressive military capabilities, but if they are not deployed in the right locations, their effectiveness may be significantly compromised. For example, Israel’s military deployment has to enable it to thwart attempts to bring in weapons (including rockets and drones) and trained terrorists or foreign military forces to the Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank from across the Jordan River.

"This mission cannot be accomplished without Israel being able to deploy its forces in areas close to the river and on the eastern slopes of the mountain ridge dominating the Jordan River valley for purposes of observation and intelligence gathering that are necessary for permanent early warning and to thwart such attempts before they cause any damage. This will allow Israel to distance its population centers and critical infrastructure from these possible threats. In addition to “boots on the ground,” Israel will require full control over the airspace above the entire territory of the West Bank as well as control of the electromagnetic spectrum to guarantee that it is able to deal effectively with any threat.

"This does not mean that this deployment can hermetically prevent any infiltration of the border, but it should guarantee that any attempt to cross into the territory from the east, even if it is part of multi-front hostile activities, is met by sufficient power in time to prevent any considerable damage to the security of Israel and its population, even if the early warning is not perfect. Moreover, Israeli military presence has a strategically important effect on deterrence and stabilization beyond the eastern border.

"There have been various suggestions and creative ideas raised to establish a border along the 1967 lines with some local changes and to replace Israel’s military presence in some of the critical areas with foreign forces or to rely on electronic detection devices alone. However, this cannot provide Israel with adequate defense. Israeli forces have to be present on the ground to take immediate action against imminent threats. Israel cannot rely on foreign forces, and detection devices can at best give some early warning or signal in real time that the border has been penetrated, but these devices cannot do much about it. The idea that Israeli intelligence collection assets will be deployed in strategically important locations but access to these locations will be through Palestinian-controlled areas, is simply not feasible.

"The same is true when it comes to preventing terror and other military threats from within the territory controlled by the Palestinians. If Israel deploys it As forces more or less along the ’67 lines, it is not going to be able to protect its main cities and infrastructure and collect the information necessary for that purpose. Moreover, it is not going to be able to prevent significant deliveries of arms to the Palestinian-controlled territories or the local production of various weapons inside these territories.

"The argument that Israel’s armed forces are much stronger than the Palestinians and therefore it can afford to move to less defensible borders in the context of a peace agreement – and if this agreement is violated by the Palestinians Israel can recapture the territory – is baseless too. First of all, under such conditions, the Palestinians will be able to accumulate a considerable number of arms and military capabilities before they trigger hostilities, and once they do, recapturing the territory is going to be very costly in terms of casualties, not only to Israeli troops but also to the Israeli civilian population and critical infrastructure. Fighting a hybrid force that has both terror and conventional (and perhaps unconventional) capabilities that is fighting behind human shields is a huge challenge for every modern army. As long as many Palestinians continue to support the plan of fighting Israel in phases over time and regard the complete defeat of Zionism as their ultimate goal, any such moves that enable this are extremely irresponsible. The case of Gaza is an illuminating precedent, as are Afghanistan, Vietnam, Lebanon, Sinai, Somalia, and other arenas.

"To sum up, the only border that may be regarded as defensible for the central region of the State of Israel is the Jordan Valley, with Israel maintaining military control of the eastern slopes of Judea and Samaria mountain ridge and of the main roads leading from west to east to enable free movement of Israel’s armed forces to the border area. This should go along with Israeli control of the airspace and the electromagnetic spectrum. The Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1967, General Earle Wheeler, clarified that to have defensible borders, Israel’s boundary must be along the commanding terrain overlooking the Jordan Valley."

https://jcpa.org/defensible-borders-for-israel-an-updated-response-to-advocates-and-skeptics/

Hamas repeatedly and openly declared the future Palestinian State will not be "peaceful". Hamas promissed to use any land in Judea and Samaria to attack Israel as they do from Gaza to create a Palestinian State "from the river to the sea".

Expelling Jews from Judea and Samaria and creating a Palestinian Arab State there is against the "two-State solution" because it would cause the destruction of Israel. The Palestinian Arabs already have a State in Jordan.

Without settlements there would be no "two-State solution" because Israel would become vulneralable to Hamas missiles and would be destroyed. Without settlements there would be no Jewish State, no "two-State solution". The Palestinian Arabs already have a State in Jordan, the Palestinian Arab State built with land from British Mandate Palestine.

The Jewish-Arab partition was already implemented when Jordan was created out of British Mandate Palestine. This happened at the same time (and was done by the same British Empire) than the India-Pakistan partition. The Palestinians already have a State in Jordan

The British planned the India-Pakistan Partition in 1947 to solve the Hindu-Muslim conflict, and also at about the same time planned the partition of British Mandate Palestine into an Arab Kingdom (Jordan) next to a Jewish State.

The concept of creating "two states for two peoples" was seen as the best solution by the British rulers in the 1940s. The British planned the India-Pakistan Partition in 1947 and the creation of Jordan as an Arab Kingdom next to Israel about the same time. Globalsecurity.org describes the history of the India-Pakistan partition of 1947.

"Mohammad Ali Jinnah, a Western-educated Muslim lawyer, persuaded the participants at the annual Muslim League session in Lahore in 1940 to adopt what later came to be known as the Pakistan Resolution, demanding the division of India into two separate sovereign states, one Muslim, the other Hindu.. On June 3, 1947, Mountbatten, the viceroy (1947) and governor-general (1947-48), announced plans for partition of the British Indian Empire into the nations of India and Pakistan, which itself was divided into east and west wings on either side of India. The June 3, 1947 Partition Plan was prepared by Mountbatten in consultation with the British Government. It was based on a fundamental principle that transfer of power should take place according to the wishes of the people."

"The principle of partition was specified in the plan : The all Muslim majority areas were to constitute part of Pakistan and similarly the Hindu majority areas were to go to India...(2)” “…What followed was "ethnic cleansing" - a term that was to gain currency later in the 20th century...Partition unleashed untold misery and loss of lives and property as millions of Hindu and Muslim refugees fled either Pakistan or India…Partition resulted in the forced movement of 20 million people (Hindus and Sikhs to India and Muslims to Pakistan). Most estimates of the numbers of people who crossed the boundaries between India and Pakistan in 1947 range between 10 and 12 million."

The same British who planned the India-Pakistan Partition in 1947 to solve the Hindu-Muslim conflict, also planned the partition of British Mandate Palestine into an Arab Kingdom (Jordan) next to a Jewish State. If Pakistan absorbed MILLIONS of Muslims from India, Jordan must absorb Palestinian refugees.

Why Muslims who escaped India during the Pakistan-India partition are not considered "refugees" today but Arabs who escaped Israel are?

The India-Pakistan partition was created with the idea of "Two States for two peoples" and it was understood Pakistan was supposed to absorb Muslim refugees from India, (at the same time) the British deliberately and miraculously set Israel up for failure when they separated Jordan from British Mandate Palestine without making it clear it was in the context of a "Two States for two peoples" framework under which Jordan was expected to absorb Arab refugees.

Before World War I Palestine was a part of the province of Southern Syria in the Ottoman Empire. In 1916, before WWI ended, the British and the French signed the secret Sikes-Pikot agreement defining their proposed spheres of influence in the Middle East if they won the war. According to the agreement France was allocated to Northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon while the British would rule over Palestine and southern Iraq.

In 1920, following the provision of the Mandate to France and Britain at San Remo, the UK took control of British Mandate Palestine (Mandatory Palestine) in what is today Israel and Jordan, land captured from the Ottoman Empire.

The McMahon-Hussein correspondence reveals details of a secret deal between Sir Henry McMahon, High Commissioner of the UK in Egypt, and the Sharif of Mecca, Hussain Bin Ali, by which the British would give control of lands captured from the Ottoman Empire to the Sharif of Mecca's family if the Arabs assisted the British in fighting the Turks during WWI.

In 1921 the UK created the Emirate of Transjordan (Jordan) in the land of Mandatory Palestine East from the Jordan river and appointed Abdullah, son of the Shariff of Mecca, as King of Jordan. (Britain also appointed Abdullah's brother Faisal as King of Iraq). Jordan was officially under British Mandate Palestine and obtained independence in 1946.

In 1948 when the British Mandate of Palestine finished and the Jewish State of Israel was created, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt (all puppet Kingdoms from the UK) attacked the newborn Jewish State.

Until 1948 Jews were a majority of the population in Jerusalem. On December 11, 2017 Amb. Dore Gold wrote in the Jerusalem Center of Public Affairs "By the mid-19th century, the British Consulate in Jerusalem made the following determination, according to this report, which I found in the Public Record Office in Kew, it states that Jews were a majority in Jerusalem, when? already in 1863 – that’s long before Theodor Herzl, before the Britt’s arrived, or Lord Balfour."

"See the guy on the right, William Seward, he was Secretary of State of the United States during the American civil war, under President Abraham Lincoln.

"When Seward’s term ended, he visited the holy land, he visited Jerusalem. And he wrote a memoir. And in his memoir, it is written, 'There is a Jewish majority in Jerusalem.'" See William Seward, Travels Around the World (1873)

https://www.amazon.com/William-Sewards-Travels-Around-World/dp/1340628880/ref=nav_signin?ie=UTF8&qid=1514882863&sr=8-5&keywords=william+seward&

In 1948 British General Glubb Pasha lead the Jordanian Arab Legion commanded mostly by British Officers* to expel all the Jews from Hebron, East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Not only they did ethnic cleansing but they destroyed dozens of ancient synagogues and 60,000 Ancient Jewish Tombstones in the Sacred Ancient Jewish Cemetery of Mount of Olives to try to erase all evidence of Jewish History in the West Bank. In 1956, after his service in Jordan, the criminal General Glubb, responsible for ethnic cleansing of Jews, was knighted by the Queen. General Glubb was appointed Knight Commander of The Order of Bath by Queen Elizabeth.

The Jewish Virtual Library describes how the Jordanian Arab Legion led by British general Glubb and staffed mostly by British officers ethnically cleansed Jews from Jerusalem. “Before the United Nations voted in favor of the Patition Plan on November 29, 1947, the Arab Legion of Jordan attacked Jerusalem.

Their forces blocked Jerusalem’s roads and cut off the city’s access to water.

After bitter fighting, the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City fell to the vastly superior arms and numbers of the Arab Legion. The surviving Jewish inhabitants fled to the “New City,” the four-fifths of the capital that Israel successfully held.

The Old City, including the Jewish Quarter, officially fell to Jordan on May 27, 1948.

Nearly twenty years later, during the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel’s army liberated Jerusalem’s Old City, finding the area completely neglected and virtually destroyed.

… All but one of the thirty five synagogues within the Old City were destroyed; those note completely devastated had been used as hen houses and stables filled with dung-heaps, garbage and carcasses.

The revered Jewish graveyard on the Mount of Olives was in complete disarray with tens of thousands of tombstones broken into pieces to be used as building materials and large areas of the cemetery leveled to provide a short-cut to a new hotel.

Hundreds of Torah scrolls and thousands of holy books had been plundered and burned to ashes…”

The Jordanian Arab Legion which led the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Eastern Jerusalem was led by British General Glubb, most of the officers of the Jordanian Arab Legion were British.

Below is a list of British officers that commanded the Jordanian Arab Legion:

*(Divisional Headquarters (under Brigadier Lash), Artillery Batteries/troops (under Lt-Col Hearst),1st Brigade (under Col. Goldie), 1st Regiment (under Lt-Col. Blackden), 3rd Regiment (under Lt-Col Newman), 3rd Brigade (under Col. Ashton), 2nd Regiment (under Maj. Slade) (Details from Laffin (1982a), Lunt (1999), Collins & Lapierre (1972).

The Palestinian National Charter of 1964 defined Palestine as the pre-1967 territory of the State of Israel – specifically excluding the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, claiming they belonged to Jordan. When the area was part of Jordan, the Palestinians affirmed they did not want that land. In 1967, Israel ended the Jordanian occupation of Judea and Samaria (that had started in 1948). In 1968 the Palestinians changed their charter to claim Judea and Samaria (besides, of course, the rest of Israel).

“Palestine and Jordan are one…” said King Abdullah in 1948.

“The truth is that Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan,”said King Hussein of Jordan, in 1981.

Jordan was created with land from British Mandate Palestine, 78% of the Jordanian population is Palestinian.

The Queen of Jordan is Palestinian, Jordan's next King will be the son of a Palestinian.

Declaring that Jordan is Palestine seems to be supported by Saudi Arabia with fears the State of Palestine will be controlled by Hamas.

On June 30, 2022 David Singer wrote in Arutz 7 "Saudi Arabia has sent US President Joe Biden and the United Nations (UN) a clear message to abandon the idea of creating a new Arab State between Israel and Jordan in an article published in Al-Arabiya News on 8 June headlined: The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine...MBS has not sought to publically distance himself from Shihabi’s article.

Shihabi lays the groundwork for his proposal: “The Palestinian problem can only be solved today if it is redefined. The issue in this day and age for people should be not so much the ownership of ancestral land but more the critical need to have a legal identity—a globally respected citizenship that allows a person to operate in the modern world. Labor in this day and age is mobile and having citizenship in a country that facilitates such mobility is critical to human development. The most logical vehicle for this redefinition and hence for the solution to the Palestine problem is the kingdom of Jordan.

Over the last seventy-five years, Jordan has developed into a relatively well-governed state, although the impact of regional political turmoil has caused it to fail economically and become heavily reliant on foreign aid for its survival.

It is this Jordanian governance infrastructure that needs to be captured and put to productive use in integrating the millions of Palestinians and Jordanians into a modern, reasonably well-functioning state that would, in an era of real peace and economic integration with Jordan’s neighbors, have a much higher chance of growth and prosperity. "This proposed enlarged kingdom would include present-day Jordan, Gaza, and the 'West Bank' (areas populated by Palestinians attached in a contiguous manner and physically connected to Jordan, i.e., not broken up into islands).”

Shihabi dismisses Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Jordan claims to be separate entities: “Jordanians and Palestinians are as similar as any people can be. They are Sunni Arabs from the same neighbourhood. Merging them will not create any long-term ethnic or sectarian fault lines.”

Jordan was a British invention and continued to be a puppet Kingdom of Britain after the British carved it out of British Mandate Palestine in 1946.

On April 12, 2018 David Israel wrote in the Jewish Press " Addressing the ninth annual Islamic Beit al-Maqdes (the term is borrowed directly from the Hebrew Beit HaMikdash – the Temple) International Conference, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said “Palestinians and Jordanians are one people in two states – Jordan and Palestine..."

Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria do not "challange the viability of the two-State solution" but actually protect the two-State solution because without Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria weapons would be smuggled, Hamas would attack Israel from there as it does from Gaza, Israel would be destroyed and there would be no Jewish State next to Jordan, the Palestinian Arab State built with land from British Mandate Palestine.

Jews have been persecuted and expelled from most Middle East Countries and they managed to find refuge in Israel, a country smaller than New Jersey.

Jimena.org reported that since 1948, 850,000 Jews have been expelled from Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lybia, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia,Yemen and other Middle East Countries.

There are 57 Islamic States (see members of Organization for Islamic Cooperation) but only one Jewish State smaller than New Jersey.

Israel is the only safe haven where Jews are free from Islamic persecution.

The same way that in Iraq the Yazidi deserve a small area as a safe heaven where they can live in security, the same way that in Egypt the Copts deserve a small area where they can live in security, Jews deserve a safe heaven where they can live safely from Islamic aggression.

After what happened in Gaza where after the Israeli withdrawal, the Arabs used the land to attack Israel, the creation of a Palestinian State Judea and Samaria became unfeasible because it will endanger Israel.

If a Palestinian State is created in Judea and Samaria, Hamas will take over and attack Israel from there as it does from Gaza.

The Palestinian Media Watch translated an interview by one of Hamas founders Mahmoud al-Zahar to the Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam in which he said “transfer what it has [in Gaza] or just a small part of it to the West Bank, we would be able to settle the battle of the final promise [to destroy Israel] with a speed that no one can imagine…[Some] have said Hamas wants to create an Islamic emirate in Gaza. We won’t do that, but we will build an Islamic state in Palestine, all of Palestine…”

After the last attack from Gaza, the two-state solution is no longer feasible. The two state solution is actually a one state solution because it will enable Hamas to attack Israel from the Judea and Samaria making normal life in Israel impossible.

The only place a Palestinian State can be created is in Jordan where the Palestinians already are the majority of the population.

Ezequiel Doiny is author of “Obama’s assault on Jerusalem’s Western Wall” and “Jerusalem is the Spiritual capital of Judaism while Mecca is the Spiritual Capital of Islam”