According to an Israel Security Agency (Shabak) report released Wednesday, there has been a significant decrease in the number of terrorist attacks recorded in 2009 as compared with previous years. On the other hand, 2009 saw an increasing Al-Qaeda-affiliated presence inside the Palestinian Authority.
Gaza
The most dramatic drop in terror incidents was recorded in Gaza, where the number of rockets fired by Palestinian 
The Hamas regime in Gaza has been concentrating on building its military capabilities and training.
Authority (PA) terrorists towards Israeli communities dropped from 2,048 in 2008 to 566 this year. Of the 2009 total, 406 were fired in January during Israel's counterterrorism operation in Gaza, Operation Cast Lead.
According to the report, ever since the conclusion of that mini-war, the Hamas regime in Gaza has been concentrating on building its military capabilities and training ahead of an expected additional round of large-scale fighting with IDF forces. The organization's tactics both for protecting its current activities and for future combat include using the civilian population of Gaza as human shields.
Additionally, Hamas has repaired and improved its network of smuggling tunnels under the strategic Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Sinai border. The tunnels are used to smuggle large quantities of weapons and ammunition for use by all terror groups active in Gaza, chief among them being Hamas. The terror cells in Gaza are also using the tunnels and other means to obtain the components and explosives for use in constructing rockets. Most of the tunnels, the Shabak report noted, are under the control of Hamas militiamen and generate significant profit for the organization.
While the number of rockets fired from Gaza has dropped dramatically, the Shabak said, motivation to carry out terrorist attacks within Jewish towns remains high. In 2009, Israeli security forces intercepted dozens of attempted infiltrations into Israel from Gaza, by way of the Sinai Peninsula, by terrorists intent on carrying out attacks here.
Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria
The Shabak report noted that 2009 continued an ongoing trend of decreasing numbers of terror attacks stemming from Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. As of December 24, there have been 636 such attacks, as opposed to 893 in 2008, 946 in 2007 and 1,309 in 2006. According to the Shabak, the decrease in terror attacks in Judea and Samaria is primarily due to Israeli counterterror operations, along with enforcement activities by the Palestinian Authority militias in Judea and Samaria.
Firearm attacks in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria have dropped from 83 in 2008 to 22 this year. There have also been 13 attacks with explosive devices in 2009, as compared with 54 last year. Over 90 percent of recorded attacks by Arabs in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria during 2009 were incidents of firebombs hurled at Israeli targets.
Casualties
Alongside the decrease in terrorist attacks, the number of casualties caused by such attacks has also gone down. Another significant factor in the relatively low number of casualties is the absence of any successful suicide bombings in Israel this year.
In all, there were 15 people murdered in terrorist attacks in 2009, of whom nine were killed during Operation Cast Lead. More than twice as many people died in terrorist incidents in 2008. There were 234 people injured in terrorist attacks this year, more than half of them during the Cast Lead conflagration. Last year saw 679 people injured in attacks against Israelis.
Global Jihad Finds a New Home in the PA
Despite the drop in overall terrorist incidents, this year saw a distinct increase in the activity within the PA of groups identifying with Al-Qaeda and its international jihad ideology, according to Shabak intelligence reports.
Dozens of PA Muslims have joined armed factions established in Gaza by branches of global jihadist organizations. These include Jaljalat, Jund Ansar Allah and others.
Dozens of PA Muslims have joined armed factions of global jihadist organizations.
During the course of 2009, terrorists from those organizations attempted to carry out several attacks on Israeli targets within pre-1967 Israel, as well as along the Gaza-Israel border. For example, in January an IDF soldier was killed by a roadside bomb placed by non-Hamas jihadists in the southern part of the Gaza region. In June, a member of a global jihadist cell in Gaza was captured trying to infiltrate Israel by way of Sinai in order to carry out a bombing in a Jewish town. Also in June, a group of jihadists not affiliated with Hamas used horses to charge the Gaza perimeter fence in an effort to attack and abduct Israeli soldiers nearby.
The latter failed attempt, according to Shabak analysis, forced Hamas to face the threat to its regime posed by the independent jihadist cells in Gaza. The confrontation between the terrorist groups reached open warfare in July, when Hamas and other jihadist factions waged a gun battle at a mosque in Rafiach. Although many jihadist leaders and several Hamas militiamen were killed, the global jihadist groups continue to develop and expand their influence in Gaza, according to the Shabak.