Israeli security forces are beginning to prevent Palestinian attacks by detecting potential perpetrators on social media.

In addition, IDF units and Shin Bet agents have been visiting the homes of young men and women expressing an intention to carry out attacks, in order to give them and their families "warning talks".

The IDF still describes the wave of attacks in the past five months as a "limited uprising" - one that has not produced widespread violence but, instead, a continuous stream of individual attempts to carry out stabbings, shooting or ramming attacks.

"There are no rules to this wave," explained a senior IDF officer. "The perpetrators can come from any part of the West Bank and Jerusalem and the timing is random. There can be one day with half a dozen attacks and then a lull of three or four days."

The typical profile is a young man or woman aged between 15 and 25 (although there have been attackers as young as 12 and as old as 72), motivated by a combined desire to revenge killings of friends and relatives and to become a martyr.

"The majority of the Palestinian population is not involved in violence," said the officer. "We want to keep it that way, but at the same time, anyone can suddenly become an attacker. This creates new dilemmas."

The IDF has concluded that since many attackers have been found, after their act, to have given some kind of hint on Facebook and Twitter, the only way to try to detect them in advance is through social media.

On Monday morning, one of the Palestinians who tried to shoot soldiers in Kiryat Arba wrote on his Facebook page a few hours earlier "morning of the knife" and begged for forgiveness from God for his sins. Israeli intelligence is developing software which tries to detect these sentiments on social media and narrow down those writing such things to the most likely potential perpetrators. They are then located and, where possible, detained or visited.

"Warning talks" are not a new tactic. Israeli security forces have used them in the past to warn terror suspects and their families. Previously, however, the suspects were targeted based on information indicating that they were involved with terror organisations. This is the first time that they are being located on the basis of their social media updates.

Israeli intelligence has been carrying out social media analysis for years now. One previous use has been to gauge in advance the number of people planning to attend rallies and demonstrations. An early conclusion was that in many cases, the overwhelming majority of those "liking" on Facebook a specific event in the West Bank lived in other countries and the actual demonstration was sparsely attended. This has helped the IDF allocate forces appropriately. The Israeli government is now trying to pressure Facebook to co-operate with it in removing "incitement" from its pages and detecting potential terrorists in advance.