Fear of October 7-style Attack from Judea and Samaria on the Rise

Friday, 16 May 2025 | Israelis are increasingly concerned about the possibility of a large-scale terrorist invasion led by Palestinian terrorist organizations from Judea and Samaria, according to a new survey made public on Thursday. 

The poll, published by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs [JCFA] and conducted by the Lazar Research Institute, surveyed a representative sample of approximately 700 Jewish and Arab Israelis. 

Eighty-one percent of the Jewish Israeli respondents have concerns about a large-scale terror attack emanating from Judea and Samaria, up from 68% in February, when the JCFA carried out its previous opinion poll. 

The latest JCFA survey also found that, in the wake of Hamas’s October. 7, 2023 massacre in southern Israel, 70% of Jews oppose establishing a Palestinian state along the country’s pre-1967 lines, even if the move would bring about the normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia. 

Seventy percent of Jews said they were against creating “Palestine,” while 17% of Arab  Israelis declared their opposition to the move. 

U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal for Gaza, which calls for mass emigration and reconstructing the Strip as the “Riviera of the Middle East,” continues to enjoy broad support in Israel, the JCFA found. 

Within the total sample of 702 Jewish and Arab respondents, 71% stated they backed the plan, with 82% of Jews and 28% of the Arabs expressing approval of Trump’s proposal to seize control of the war-torn territory. 

“The findings reflect a new security reality for Israeli society and the continued opposition of the Israeli public to a Palestinian state that supports terrorism, even under the condition of normalization with Saudi Arabia,” stated Dan Diker, the Jerusalem center’s president. 

The Israeli public “understands that the security and existential threats to Israel must be addressed by the Israeli leadership,” Diker concluded. 

In September, Israeli authorities filed an indictment against a member of a terrorist cell based in the Samaria city of Jenin who planned to infiltrate Israeli communities and carry out an October. 7–-style massacre. 

The indictment accused Osama Bani Fadl and other terrorist operatives of making serious preparations for a mass slaughter targeting Jewish residents of Samaria, including by infiltrating towns with vehicles. 

The cell reportedly also planned terror attacks inside the town of Ma’ale Efraim in the Jordan Valley, and a drive-by shooting and car bombing at the gas station outside Eli in the Binyamin region of Samaria, a location that was targeted twice by Palestinian terrorists over the past two years. 

Palestinian terrorists targeted Israeli Jews in Judea and Samaria at least 6,343 times in 2024, according to figures published by the Rescuers Without Borders (Hatzalah Judea and Samaria) NGO in February. 

Twenty-seven Israelis were murdered in Judea and Samaria in 2024, and more than 300 others were wounded, the group said in its annual report. 

The figures, which were cross-checked against official data from Israel’s security services, included 3,668 instances of rock-throwing, 843 fire bombings, 671 attempts to blind drivers with laser pointers, 526 explosive charges, 364 cases of arson and 179 terrorist shootings. 

The rescue group also recorded 37 attempted or successful stabbings, 36 bottles of paint being thrown at vehicles and 19 Palestinian car-ramming attacks, including 12 that caused injuries to Israelis. 

The report noted that the Israel Security Agency also foiled more than a thousand major attacks in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. 

Jerusalem is aware that a “more intense front” could open in Judea and Samaria amid the expansion of fighting with Hamas terrorists in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed on March 19.