This article was originally published on JNS.org on September 8, 2025.
There were three years, from 2000 to 2003, when almost every day in Israel a bus blew up or a massacre was carried out in a pizzeria or a restaurant. That was the Second Intifada.
More than 1,000 Israelis were murdered, until the Park Hotel massacre in Netanya—30 people slaughtered as they sat at their Passover seder—pushed Israel to send its troops into the cities that had become factories of terror. It worked. The intifada was crushed.
Later, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon—who had ordered the military operation—implemented the Gaza disengagement. More attempts at peace followed. Yet history has been punctuated by repeated outbursts of jihadist violence, leading up to Oct. 7, 2023, and now, to the horrifying realization that Israel is again under siege.
Monday’s bus massacre in Jerusalem made this crystal clear. The victims were innocent passengers heading to work. Earlier on Monday, four soldiers were killed in a Hamas attack on the outskirts of Gaza City.
The day before, a police detective was killed by gunfire in the Wadi Ara area and travelers were targeted at Eilat Airport. Before that, residents along the Gaza border. Farther north, civilians along the border with Lebanon. Looming in the background is Iran, feeding the fire with deadly weapons.
This is the nature of Israel’s reality: The rockets, the drones and the bullets only stop where Israel stops them with force. Otherwise, the country is so small that every explosion reverberates everywhere, sending families to shelters and turning buses into moving coffins.
Since Oct. 7, Israelis know this truth better than ever. This time, the grim face of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the scene said more than words.
The threat is expanding. Judea and Samaria could become the next front for Hamas. The jihadists are explicit: They cannot lose. The Quran promises victory over the “infidels,” from the river to the sea. If this is still unclear to the West, it only strengthens both Sunni and Shi’ite radicals who are waging war without restraint.
In 2024 alone, Israel foiled 1,000 terror plots. But this attack slipped through. The two terrorists infiltrated near Katana, outside Ramallah, through one of the nighttime breaches used by shabachim—illegal Palestinian workers who evade Israeli controls. Hamas congratulated the killers but did not claim responsibility.
In Judea and Samaria, the group is still experimenting and organizing, preparing for something larger.
The larger plan is obvious: Jerusalem. For jihad, there is no greater prize. The city is encircled by towns and villages, the very places from which the two murderers came. Monday’s massacre was different in its sheer ferocity from the many drive-by shootings on highways. Armed with a cheap Carlo rifle and a pistol, the two terrorists boarded a crowded bus and shot passengers in the face. It was Oct. 7, in miniature.
There have been 55 terror attacks so far in 2025. The number is down, but only because Israeli surveillance has been tightened since the Hamas massacre and Palestinian entry permits are now heavily restricted. Yet the breaches remain countless and an estimated 40,000 shabachim move illegally inside Israel. This shadow army can find allies, weapons and safe houses among Israeli Arabs, all in service of the next planned inferno inside Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority has abandoned any pretense of moderation. It is now dwarfed by Hamas in public support and firmly tied to jihadist ideology. P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas still pays monthly stipends to every terrorist in prison and to the families of “martyrs.” He sustains terror instead of restraining it.
Israel understands that its survival is at stake. But the West does not. French President Emmanuel Macron is now pushing for U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state—one that shows no sign of distancing itself from jihadism. This does not create peace. It only pressures Israel to institutionalize its self-defense and strengthens the jihadist narrative that terrorism pays.
Israel is living the reality of a new intifada. The West should wake up to it before it is too late.
