Israeli soldiers and medics at the scene of a stabbing attack by a Palestinian teen which killed American-Israeli Ari Fuld outside a mall in the Etzion bloc on Sept. 16, 2018. (Gershon Elinson/FLASH90)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Israel Security Agency thwarted 480 terror attacks in the last year, its director said.

In a briefing to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, ISA Director Nadav Argaman called the apparent quiet in the West Bank “deceptive.” He told the lawmakers that Gaza and the West Bank have become “extremely unstable” over the last year.

“Hamas is trying very hard to carry out terror attacks in and from Judea and Samaria,” Argaman said. The ISA is also known as the Shin Bet.

“On the surface it appears as if there’s relative calm, but this quiet is deceptive, because beneath the surface tensions are increasingly simmering,” he said.

Argaman told the Knesset committee that 480 terror attacks were thwarted, and 219 Hamas cells, directed by Gaza, Turkey and Lebanon, were arrested. Some 590 lone attackers also were thwarted.

He said his agency also thwarted cyber attacks against the State of Israel, both terrorism and espionage.