Yesha: Dummy rocket in Judea result of bid to establish Palestinian state

The Yesha Council umbrella group of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria on Tuesday accused the Israeli government of failing to deliver “any real response” to attempts to establish a Palestinian terror state after the army found a dummy rocket outside a community in the Gush Etzion region of Judea.

“This morning’s dummy missile is the equivalent of the incendiary kites in the Gaza Envelope [border area] in 2021,” the organization stated, in reference to the Hamas-led terrorist campaign that started in 2018.

Calling the discovery of the projectile a “reminder of the reality of a terror state adjacent to Israel,” the group warned the government in Jerusalem against returning to the security “conception” that existed before Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, cross-border massacre from the Strip.

“This morning it’s a mock missile aimed at Migdal Oz, but tomorrow it will be real missiles toward Tel Aviv,” according to the Yesha Council.

“This is the result when Arab terror receives tailwinds from Europe without any real response from the Israeli government,” added the NGO, referencing European initiatives to establish “Palestine.”

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed to JNS on Tuesday morning that, the previous night, soldiers identified a “suspicious object” near the village of Migdal Oz, a community of around 400 residents in Judea.

“The security forces located the object and dismantled it in a controlled manner,” the IDF told JNS, adding: “Contrary to the reports, it was not a missile, but rather a plastic object that did not contain explosives.”

According to Israel’s Kan News broadcaster, the projectile was made of a plastic sewage pipe, with a propeller attached so it resembled a rocket.

In November, Palestinian terrorists in western Samaria for the first time tried to fire a rocket with powerful explosives at Israel’s central region.

The terrorist projectile, whose warhead contained high explosives with the potential to cause mass casualties, was discovered in bushes in the village of Budrus near Ramallah, located about six miles from Ben-Gurion International Airport, Israel Hayom reported on Nov. 13.

The outlet noted that this marked the first time that a “high quality” (e.g., non-improvised) rocket warhead was found in Judea and Samaria. It was also the first time a rocket was located outside northern Samaria.

In June 2024, Palestinian Authority security officials told Kan News that Iranian-backed terrorist organizations might be able to fire advanced rockets at densely populated central Israel from Samaria within a year.