A new wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence has been sweeping the West Bank in recent months, but it is too soon to determine whether this is yet another periodic round of clashes that will peter out soon, or the start of a third Palestinian intifada.

The attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers have been escalating, with the most recent the Sept. 15 shooting by Palestinians at a Jewish seminary in the southern Hebron Hills settlement of Carmel, in which an 18-year-old yeshiva student was wounded. The military launched a manhunt for the assailants, while Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

Special Israeli military units have been mounting nighttime raids for months to capture suspected Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank, especially around the northern towns of Jenin and Nablus, both considered hotbeds of anti-Israel terrorism.

The ongoing Israeli operation, codenamed “Breakwater,” launched in the wake of a series of terrorist attacks in Israeli urban centers between March and May, is meant to dry up what Israel describes as a “swamp” of terrorism and prevent its spread to other parts of the West Bank.