The Israeli security agency Shin Bet recently foiled an attempt by Iran to smuggle large amounts of advanced weapons to Palestinian terrorists in Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank) to be used in attacks against targets in Israel. The smuggling operation demonstrates that Iran, after losing its proxies in Lebanon and Syria, is intensifying its efforts to open a new eastern terror front against Israel inside Judea and Samaria by exploiting Israel’s long and porous border with Jordan.
A joint Shin Bet–Israel Defense Forces (IDF) statement said the agencies intercepted a shipment of Iranian weapons, including rocket launchers, anti-tank rockets, explosive-laden drones, rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns, assault rifles, handguns, and other items. The plot to smuggle “balance-altering” weapons into Judea and Samaria was organized by Iran’s Unit 4000, a special operations division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Unit 18840, an IRGC special operations unit in Syria.
The Israeli counterintelligence operation began when the IDF arrested an arms dealer in the Ramallah area of Judea and Samaria. The Shin Bet said its interrogation of the dealer led the security agency to the smugglers and subsequently to the shipment itself. Similar operations had already been foiled in March and November 2024. It’s entirely possible that large quantities of Iranian weapons are flooding into Judea and Samaria undetected by Israeli security agencies.
“This shipment, like its predecessors, is part of an ongoing Iranian effort to undermine security in the region by arming terror cells on the ground whose purpose is to carry out attacks against Israelis and IDF troops,” the Shin Bet said in a statement.
Iran began boosting its weapons-smuggling efforts in Judea and Samaria after Hamas terrorist cells there failed to carry out attacks on Israel in the immediate aftermath of the terror group’s massacre of Israelis in October 2023. Tehran now seeks to flood Judea and Samaria with Iranian weapons transshipped through Jordan to undermine Israeli security.
After Jordan (which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994) increased the number of troops deployed along its border with Israel to prevent the smuggling of Iranian weapons, Iran intensified its efforts to destabilize the Jordanian monarchy. In May 2024, Jordan foiled an Iranian plot to smuggle weapons into the kingdom to help a Hamas-allied Muslim Brotherhood cell there to carry out acts of sabotage against the ruling monarchy.
Meanwhile, Israel is building a state-of-the-art fence along its border with Jordan to prevent Iranian infiltration and weapons smuggling. The project, which will cost around $1.5 billion and take three years to complete, will stretch approximately 250 miles (400 kilometers) from the Golan Heights south to Eilat.
Middle East analyst Joe Truzman warned that although Iranian efforts to arm Palestinian terrorist groups in Judea and Samaria are nothing new, the nature of the weapons now being smuggled is deeply troubling. “Tehran is not only sending rifles and pistols; it is attempting to move advanced, destabilizing systems that could transform the security landscape in the territory,” he said. “These are game-changing weapons capable of inflicting mass casualties against IDF troops or civilians. The Israeli security establishment has every reason to view Iran’s renewed efforts to destabilize the West Bank with serious concern.”
Another Middle East expert, Seth Frantzman, applauded Israel’s foiling of Iran’s plot to smuggle weapons into Judea and Samaria as an important achievement. “Iran has used this model in Gaza and Lebanon,” he said. “It is now trying to inflame the West Bank.”
Editor’s Note: Evil is relentless
Erick Stakelbeck, host of The Watchman Newscast and Stakelbeck Tonight, recently described the relentless hatred of Israel found in the Iranian regime and how antisemitism invites God’s judgment:
Since the October 7th massacre carried out by the Iranian proxy Hamas, their terror network is in dire straits. Hamas and Hezbollah, in particular, have been severely diminished. The Houthis are licking their wounds now in Yemen. Assad in Syria is gone. The Shia militias in Iraq have been quiet. All of Israel’s enemies have essentially been smashed. The Iranian ring of fire is a smoldering heap of ruins.
That wasn’t the end ot it. During the 12 Day War, Israel inflicted significant damage, pounding ballistic missile stockpiles and launchers, and eliminating dozens of top Iranian military leaders and nuclear scientists. President Trump got involved, making the bold decision to send those “beautiful B-2 bombers” to “take care of business” and destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Egg was on the face of Tehran. All that bluster and threats for 46 years, and at the end of the day, the Iranian regime proved to be a paper tiger—embarrassingly exposed for all the world to see. The Iranian regime was clearly outmatched in a massive demonstration of Israeli and American military might.
You might expect that afterward Iran would keep their mouth shut for a while, be wise, and just lay low—but no. Despite the heavy blows over the past two years, none of these anti-semitic and demonically driven bad actors repented. Since the 12 Day War, Iran has become even more arrogant and boastful, levying constant threats against Israel and America.
Evil is relentless until it is utterly crushed. Evil also eventually invites judgment.
A foundational verse for Christian supporters of Israel and the Jewish people is Genesis 12:3. God says to Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you.” If you question whether that verse is about blessing Israel, I would point out that it was a promise directed to the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—who God renamed Israel. It is speaking of both the nation and the children of Israel.
History decisively attests to the cursing described in Genesis 12:3. We can see this plainly through a cursory glance at the last approximately 3,500 years of world history—Pharaoh in Egypt, the Philistines, the Amalekites, the Jebusites, all the Canaanite tribes, the Assyrians, Haman of the Persian Empire, the Babylonian Empire, the Greeks, the Romans, and eventually the Ottomans and the Nazis. What do all those far-flung individuals, empires, and nations have in common? All of them, at one time or another, came against Israel and the Jewish people—and all of them were utterly defeated.
Israel has outlasted all of their enemies, against all odds, continuing not only to survive, but to thrive. This is not a coincidence; this is a promise-keeping God who has made eternal covenants with the nation of Israel.
