Sometime between late Saturday night and Sunday morning, on Dec. 18-19, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett received news of a breakthrough in efforts to catch the perpetrators of the deadly shooting three days earlier, on Dec. 16, near the West Bank outpost of Homesh. The attack left Yehuda Dimentan, 25, dead and two others injured.

The successful operation was over before dawn. The Shin Bet, supported by special forces from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the police, captured seven terrorists, four of whom were behind the attack. No Israeli forces were hurt in the operation.

Bennett’s decision that night to keep track of the operation from the military command center surprised the top brass of the IDF and Shin Bet. Rarely do prime ministers show up at command centers to oversee “tactical” operations. Even Defense Minister Benny Gantz wasn’t there. He preferred instead to receive regular updates by phone throughout the night.

The media released news of the successful operation early on Dec. 19. This included official photos of the prime minister in the command center, being updated by senior officers, and an unusually firm statement by Bennett: “Let every terrorist know that the State of Israel will hold him to account. There’s no way to hide for long. I’d like the family of Yehuda Dimentan to know — the pain is enormous, but terrorism will not win. It will not push us out of our rightful place here.”