Palestinian security forces attack militants in the West Bank

Shatha Sabbagh, a journalism student in her 20s from Jenin, West Bank, was returning home from buying sweets with her mother and three other relatives when the gunfire erupted.

The group threw themselves down, but for Shatha, time was running out. “He had his eyes open and he was looking at me,” said his mother Nahed Sabbagh, her voice beginning to break. “And then I saw something coming from his head. And at this moment, I realized that I had lost my daughter.”

In recent years, the refugee camp in Jenin where Shatha was shot – the narrow streets that have become one of the strongholds of Palestinian militant groups in the West Bank – has been the target of deadly attacks. and the destroyers are the Israeli security forces. .

But Shatha’s death in late December occurred in the middle of something very unusual: an operation by the Palestinian Authority’s security forces, which exercise limited autonomy in parts of the West Bank, against camp fighters.

Palestinian officials say the operation – now in its sixth week, and the PA’s largest in 30 years – is designed to restore law and order against “violators of law” in the chaos camp, which is long past. PA control.

The operation has also been widely interpreted as an attempt by the PA to demonstrate to the international community that it is capable of taking part in the administration of Gaza once the war between Israel and Hamas ends – an idea supported by The US, Arab and European countries, but strongly opposed by the strict Israeli government.

Israel and Hamas this week finally reached a multi-stage agreement to end the 15-month conflict and release hostages still in Gaza. But it is unclear whether it will lead to a permanent end to the war, with far-right ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government calling for Israel to resume hostilities.

“PA wants to show . . . whoever thinks the next day can set rules and regulations, and that they can play a role not only in the West Bank but also in Gaza,” said Adnan Alsabah, a political expert in Jenin.

But the killing of civilians like Shatha, whose mother blames the PA, and the PA on militants, has sparked outrage, and threatens to further undermine the dwindling local legitimacy of the weak PA. Founded as a stepping stone to a Palestinian state, it is now viewed by many Palestinians as an ally of Israel.

“The people in the camp had one enemy. Now they have two,” said Sabbagh. “(Israel) and the PA – they are two sides of the same coin.”

The PA operation began in December after militants seized two PA vehicles, surrounded them in the camp in protest of the arrest of two Islamic Jihad fighters and opened fire on municipal buildings. Since then, PA forces say they have arrested dozens of alleged militants, detonated improvised explosive devices and seized large amounts of weapons and ammunition.

But the situation in Jenin is still stable. When the Financial Times visited, access to the camp was blocked by PA cars and checkpoints. There were frequent shootings, including one that killed a 50-year-old woman.

Brigadier General Anwar Rajab, PA military spokesman, said that apart from restoring law and order, the operation was aimed at preventing militant attacks that would give the Israeli government a reason to launch an operation. it’s big in that area.

Netanyahu’s government, considered the most powerful in Israel’s history, is supported by ministers committed to seizing the West Bank, and confirmed by the re-election of Donald Trump.

“We don’t want an all-out conflict with (Israel),” Rajab said. “We are the ones who will lose this conflict. We don’t want to let anyone drag us there.”

But others view the recent PA operation, which Rajab said involved “several hundred” soldiers, as an understatement, and argue that it has left the authority in a bind.

“The PA is not in a position to break the camp using great force, because if it did, there would be many casualties and its support could fall to the ground, and that could also lead to riots elsewhere in the West. Bank,” said Ibrahim Dalalsha, director of the Ramallah-based Horizon Center for Political Studies.

“But now that we have sent all those troops, if the PA pulls back now, it will fall, not only in the eyes of its international and regional partners, but also in terms of local politics.”

For now, both sides of Jenin seem to have been blocked.

In the past six weeks, hostilities have killed six members of the Palestinian security services, and nine others. The PA said the three were fighters, but according to the UN, only one was armed.

On the other hand, a major Israeli operation in Jenin last year killed 21 people in nine days, according to Palestinian officials. Israel said at the time that it had killed 14 militants. This week, two Israeli drone attacks in Jenin killed 12 people. According to the latest UN figures, Israeli forces killed 795 Palestinians in the West Bank since the beginning of the war in Gaza, caused by the attack of Hamas on 7 October 2023 on Israel.

But while the number of people killed by the PA operation is very low, the fact that Palestinians are still fighting each other – as the Israeli army continues to carry out a brutal attack on Gaza – has caused a lot of sense of search. spirits.

“What is happening in Jenin is a black page in Palestinian history,” said Alsabah. “It shows the world that we don’t agree, that we don’t have a common platform, that we don’t have a common vision.”

As the process progressed, public pressure to end it increased. Community leaders in Jenin and Ramallah have appealed to the PA and militants to end the standoff, with further calls following Israeli airstrikes and the declaration of a cease-fire in Gaza. On Friday, efforts were underway to resolve the issue.

“The state of Jenin cannot defeat the PA militarily. It has more than 30,000 security forces. It has the weapons and money to maintain its control. And it has international and regional support,” he said. Broker.

“The PA’s problem is that its position with the public was lost, even before this operation. And the situation in Jenin made it even less.”

Graphics and data visualization by Aditi Bhandari and Chris Campbell