The Operation Summer Camps counterterrorism operation was launched in northern Shomron due to serious intelligence warning of an October 7 infiltration attack or raid on an Israeli yishuv from Tulkarm, Kan News reported on Thursday evening.

According to the report, a terrorist squad planned to infiltrate an Israeli yishuv in the Shomron and carry out a large-scale attack.

Security officials said that some of the terrorists planning the attack were eliminated in the operation but the ongoing terror threat from the area remains and is rapidly increasing.

Another reason for the operation was the increasing threat of explosives – both those smuggled through the porous Jordanian border and those manufactured in explosives laboratories, such as the one destroyed by IDF forces on Wednesday in the Far’a refugee camp near Tubas in the Jordan Valley.

The Israeli security establishment no longer has any doubts that terror groups in Yehudah and Shomron have powerful M18A1 claymore-type munitions.

Ynet military correspondent Yosi Yehoshua reported that Palestinian areas in the Shomron and Jordan Valley are not just teeming with terrorism, they are undergoing an accelerated process of becoming another Gaza Strip, including being flooded with explosive devices and funding and guidance from Iran.

The issue of the porous Jordanian border also must be addressed. IDF and Border Police forces risked their lives to enter Jenin and Tulkarm to find and destroy explosives for what will be only a temporary fix if hundreds of kilometers of Israel’s border with Jordan remain breached.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)