Yaalon: Israel Sees Palestinian Attacks ‘Waning’

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said Thursday that Israel had prevented the recent violent wave from escalating into an armed Palestinian revolt with preemptive raids and arrests, and he predicted that the grassroots violence would stop.

“We are managing to foil plans by the organizations, the terrorist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, to carry out attacks. If it were up to them, there would be suicide bombings and gun attacks here every day,” Yaalon told Israel Radio.

“The fact that we are succeeding lends salience to the attempted stabbing or car-ramming attacks. We will also prevail over this phenomenon, I say, but this is a process that takes time. Statistically, we see a waning of this.”

His comments were backed up with statistics released this week by the Shin Bet. According to Shin Bet sources, there were 246 terror attacks in December, a sharp reduction from the number in November, which totaled 326. Of the December attacks, 183 were incidents involving firebombs. In Yehudah and Shomron, there were 194 attacks in December, compared to 265 in November. Yerushalayim saw 43 attacks in December, compared to 52 in November. Within “Israel proper,” there were two incidents in December, compared to five in November.