TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel’s military intelligence is witnessing a strategic encirclement of the Jewish state by Iran, which is intent on fomenting a war of suicide bombings, kidnappings, and rocket attacks in the territory Israel has occupied since the 1967 Six-Day War.

Iranian and Hezbollah paymasters have provided a financial bounty in the last year for acts of arbitrary violence committed by the diffuse Palestinian Arab terror cells in the land the Old Testament calls Judea and Samaria.

Largely operating through contacts in Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the remnants of the old Tanzim militia affiliated with the Fatah Party, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Quds force, along with Hezbollah, are paying dinars and dollars to Palestinian Arabs who claim a successful attack on Israeli civilians.

The going rate, according to a briefing yesterday from the Israel Defense Force, is a few thousand dollars for a successful suicide bombing campaign or kidnapping. That money, however, is paid to a cell responsible for an attack rather than to the family of a suicide bomber, as was the pattern of external terror funding during the second intifada, between 2000 and 2003.

Intelligence collected from informants, prisoners, and other means suggests the Iranian paymasters are encouraging the West Bank terror cells to start launching rocket attacks. While no rockets have yet been launched from the West Bank, the threat presents an even greater strategic challenge than the one facing the Israeli military today in southern Lebanon.

From positions in Ramallah, Nablus, and Jericho, the heart of the Jewish state is vulnerable, including Ben Gurion Airport and the capital, Jerusalem. “There has not been a rocket attack yet, but they are making their best efforts,” a senior military officer here said yesterday in an interview.

The threat of rocket attacks is important because such projectile explosives could render ineffective the security barrier that has been so effective in deterring Palestinian Arab suicide bombers.

Since July 12, when the Lebanon war began, Israel has disrupted what an IDF spokesman, Guy Spiegelman, said are eight “real and present threats.” According to other IDF officials, these include suicide-bombing threats in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and other plots foiled in Jenin and Nablus.

With a persistent threat of attacks from the West Bank, Israel now faces a war on three fronts.

“We know also that Hezbollah has an interest in this and has been supporting this logistically,” Mr. Spiegelman said. “The terror groups are claiming links to other sorts of conflicts, but they don’t really need an excuse. They will attack when they can. That is our assumption.”

Other IDF officials, speaking anonymously, provided more details about how the Iranian bounty system works. Iranians are relying increasingly on Hawala networks, or informal arrangements between individuals to move money to people without bank accounts, they said. These networks have been instrumental in getting funds to Al Qaeda plotters. Some Middle Eastern banks also provide funding to the terror cells, along with Iranian agents who travel to the West Bank and Gaza, delivering cash in person.

The Hamas regime in charge of the Palestinian Authority has felt the squeeze from banks in recent months as a result of an American policy that allows individuals to sue banks that do business with known terror organizations and threatens that such activities could result in the banks being cut off from the lucrative American financial markets.

In the last year, the IDF has discovered a number of homemade rockets in the West Bank. Thus far, however, the Kassams and Katyushas that are being launched from Gaza and Lebanon, respectively, have not found their way to the West Bank. In part this is due to a high level of cooperation on intelligence matters between Jordan and Israel, IDF officials say.

The head of the center for Iranian studies at Tel Aviv University, David Menashri, said yesterday that he believed Iran is competing to lead the Islamic world. As such, Mr. Menashri said Iran’s external activities are focused on Jerusalem.

“The main issue for the Iranians is to strive for Islamic leadership, and this means they must take the lead on the Palestinian issue,” he said. “The Golan Heights is less relevant. The main issue is political Islam and the Palestinian issue. Whether we like it or not, Jerusalem is the main issue. The closest to them is the Islamic Jihad. There has been a kind of ideological and moral support that has turned into military support.”