Seventy-seven percent of Israelis, including 86% of Jewish Israelis, believe a large-scale terrorist attack modeled on the October 7 Hamas massacre could originate from Judea and Samaria, according to new polling data released by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA). The number has climbed steadily for over two years, and it now sits alongside a defense establishment warning that the threat is not theoretical.
The JCFA survey, conducted September 2-4 among 703 Jewish and Arab Israelis by Dr. Menachem Lazar’s Lazar Research Institute, found that 75% of Jewish Israelis and 67% of all Israelis oppose establishing a Palestinian state along the pre-1967 lines. That opposition has held remarkably steady since October 7, 2023, according to the JCFA, which has now tracked the question across seven consecutive surveys spanning 30 months.
What has not held steady is fear of the West Bank itself becoming what the JCFA calls Israel’s “next front.” In February 2025, 62% of Israelis and 68% of Israeli Jews told JCFA pollsters they were concerned about an October 7-style attack from that direction. Nineteen months later, in the September 2026 survey, that number reached 77% overall and 86% among Jewish Israelis. Even on the political left, where respondents were evenly split at the start of the tracking period, 58% now say they are concerned, compared to 32% who are not.
The fear is not confined to abstract polling. Defense Minister Israel Katz announced this month that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have instructed the IDF to prepare for what he called “an all-out war” against Palestinian Authority officials and infrastructure if Israel identifies signs that PA-linked security forces are preparing an October 7-style assault.
“If the security apparatuses of the Palestinian Authority and the bodies associated with them launch, or we know for certain that they are about to launch, an October 7-style terrorist attack against forces and Jewish settlements,” Katz said the IDF has been ordered to move against “all terrorist infrastructure in Judea and Samaria.”
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The warning follows research published by the JCFA in July, authored by Lt.-Col. (res.) Adv. Maurice Hirsch, documenting what he termed a “turning the guns” scenario: the possibility that Palestinian Authority security personnel, trained and armed under the framework of the Oslo Accords, could turn those weapons on Israeli civilians and soldiers.
