Opinion
What fate awaits Abbas and his Authority?THAT OF A QUISLING & COMPRADOR
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas makes a speech during the ‘World Urban Forum’ in Cairo, Egypt on November 04, 2024. [Mohammed Ozkam/Anadolu via Getty Images]
by Muhammad JamilJanuary 9, 2025
MEMO
Mahmoud Abbas has six security agencies which operate mainly in the (A) classified area of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and which exchange roles with the Occupation forces in suppressing the Palestinian people. These six agencies are the General Intelligence, Preventive Security, Military Intelligence, Civil Police, National Security and Presidential Security. A budget of more than a billion dollars has been allocated to these agencies, equivalent to the budget of the Ministries of Education and Agriculture.
People around the world may be shocked by the number and formation of these agencies, which were designed specifically for a people suffering under Occupation, not to preserve their security and safety, but to protect the security of Israel. These agencies that interfere in the affairs of the Palestinians on a daily basis are unparalleled in the whole world, even in the most dictatorial regimes that have highly specialised agencies but do not interfere in the lives of citizens whatsoever.
Since the members of these agencies had set foot in the Occupied Territories under the Oslo Accords, overt and covert security prosecution had been taking place between 1993-1995, where they have been carrying out their assignments with complete dedication and loyalty. Their only concern is to eliminate any actions that threaten Israel’s security or any serious opposition of the Oslo Accords, while political life in Israel became lively and had fierce opposition and violation of the agreements, where the Occupation forces and settlers were given carte blanche to kill and arrest Palestinians and expand settlement activities.
For more than 30 years, these agencies have taken turns with the Occupation forces in arresting citizens, including students, workers, professors, scientists and journalists. Not for a crime they committed, but rather for their anti-occupation activities and their opposition to the Oslo Accords, which undermined the rights of the Palestinian people recognised in international law, most notably the right to self-determination.
These agencies have been given the freedom to tamper with the security and safety of the Palestinian citizens. They raid their homes at night to arrest whoever they want after terrorising their residents, assaulting them and vandalising their belongings, exactly like the Occupation does while, during the day, they rampage through the streets, storming workplaces, universities and schools to arrest and shoot citizens, preventing any demonstration denouncing the crimes of the Occupation.
I have worked for so many years with legal experts and field research teams to monitor and document the crimes committed by these agencies. The outcome of this research has been terrifying, as there audio and video testimonies of untold horrors on torture, home invasions, the placing of spying devices and cameras in bedrooms and the beating of women and children during raids and searches to arrest wanted persons.
The research revealed the strong and deep connection between these agencies with the Israeli, American and European security agencies. These agencies receive direct financial support from the latter and field training in repression and investigation, to the point that Israelis from the Shin Bet come specifically to the city of Jericho to give regular lectures to students affiliated with the University of Independence, which specialises in security sciences.
Those in Europe, Britain and America who provide the financial support to the security agencies of the Palestinian Authorities are happy with what it does.
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They have never linked the aid they provide or put a condition on receiving it to the achievement of democracy by the Palestinian Authority nor commitment to the Human Rights Charter, which they have been preaching about day and night, as long as it preserves the security of the Israelis, just the same way they do not put conditions on the aid they provide to Israel with its commitment to the rules of international law.
These agencies have completely merged with their Israeli counterparts and have imbibed their security doctrine, and their belief is now that, whoever is considered an enemy of the Occupation is necessarily an enemy of these agencies. Not only this, but also anyone from these agencies or from the Fatah movement, the ruling party of the Palestinian Authority, who opposes this policy and raises his voice could be excluded and even liquidated, as has happened on many occasions. In a special testimony by one of the officers, he said: “The members of these agencies are trained to carry out orders, even if the target is their father or mother, regardless of any degree of kinship or societal norms.”
The campaigns launched by these agencies for decades and, up until today, are extensive and systematic, completely similar to the daily campaigns of the Occupation. The goal is to eliminate activists who oppose the Occupation and the agendas of the Authority. Throughout the years of their work, these agencies have arrested thousands, killed under torture more than 60 citizens, and looted and robbed millions of citizens’ savings.
The irony is that the ready-made accusation directed at most activists because of their opinions or gathering to protest the crimes of the Occupation and criticise the Palestinian Authority is “resisting the Authority”, “insulting high figures” and “inciting sectarian strife”. The last accusation raises a lot of amusement and astonishment, since the Occupied Palestinian Territories do not have warring sects like some neighbouring countries, as Christians and Muslims, side by side, suffer from the crimes of the Occupation and struggle to get rid of the Occupation and establish an independent State.
These agencies consist of more than 70,000 members, equating to 16 security officers for every 1,000 citizens—a ratio typically seen only in totalitarian police regimes. It includes ranks, colonels, brigadiers and generals, that those watching from afar would believe that these are the heads of an impregnable and sovereign state but, in reality, they are servants and slaves of the Occupation, moving between the areas classified as (A, B, and C) under special cards. They are humiliated and insulted at checkpoints, and when the Occupation forces storm their areas, they hide in their holes until the Occupation completes its mission. These agencies have never confronted or stood against the attacks of the Occupation forces or settlers on citizens, and they have not arrested any settler to hold him accountable for the crimes he committed in the Territories under the rule of the Palestinian Authority. On the contrary, if they arrest a settler, they hand him over to the Occupation to release him to repeat his crimes.
Therefore, it is illogical to describe the relationship between these agencies and the Occupation forces as “coordination”, but rather it is one-sided cooperation that amounts to treason and espionage with the enemy, by collecting information about activists, preparing files and passing them on to the Israelis and Americans.
Furthermore, exhausting Palestinian society through repeated arrests and confiscating the movable and immovable assets of those targeted has caused serious damage to the main interests of the Palestinian people and made them subject to the cruelty of the Occupation.
The late Yasser Arafat decided to rebel against this system that he had created with his own hands after seven years of security cooperation and the collapse of the Camp David talks, where many members of these agencies joined the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000. However, the sources of corruption, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, conspired against him while he was being bombarded and besieged in Ramallah, and one of the current leaders known for his success had poisoned him through a dentist, according to leaked documents from the investigation committee into his assassination.
After Arafat’s assassination in 2004, the security services were restructured and General Dayton was sent to train officers. An American-European-Israeli committee was formed to supervise the work of these services and ensure they were doing what was necessary to prevent any hostile actions against Israel. The ferocity of these services increased and they continued their arrest and torture campaigns on a large scale, without the position of donors and supporters ever changing.
The Palestinian Authority’s prisons were filled with detainees, and torture spread like a pandemic in all security headquarters. Jericho Prison was called the “slaughterhouse” due to the severity and brutality of the torture operations.
The communication of these services with their Israeli counterparts reached its peak without shame or fear, as officers from the Shin Bet attended and supervised the investigation sessions. Those who were found of interest were transferred to Israeli prisons to complete the investigation and be put on trial.
OPINION: The PA wants its repression hidden in plain sight
The political level headed by Abbas stuck to the doctrine of security cooperation with the Occupation, considering it “sacred”. Whenever criticism of this cooperation intensified due to the expansion of settlements and killings, Abbas or the Central Committee of the Fatah movement would announce the freezing of security cooperation, but it was nothing but empty talk, as cooperation at all stages did not stop for a moment.
Today, after the events of 7 October and the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, nothing has changed. These agencies continued their work as usual, violently confronting all means of showing solidarity with the Gaza Strip, killing 16 citizens and injuring others, including children, and launching arrest campaigns in rotation with the Occupation forces in what is known as the “revolving door”. This brutal and intensified repression in the West Bank distracted the people there from the genocide happening against the people in the Gaza Strip.
Despite the fierce settlement campaign throughout the West Bank, the assault on Al-Aqsa Mosque, the settlers’ attacks on citizens by beating, shooting and burning property, and Smotrich and Ben Gvir’s threats to impose Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority’s security services, under direct orders from Abbas, have increased the level of repression across the whole of the West Bank cities, until it imposed a tight siege on the Jenin camp for more than thirty five days.
The Palestinian Authority’s security services followed the steps of the Occupation forces in besieged cities, villages and camps, as it prevented the residents of Jenin camp from leaving the camp, and prevented children and students from going to their schools. The residents were deprived of food, medicine and fuel, and the forces stormed homes, burned them down and destroyed some of them.
They also burned citizens’ cars, used RPG launchers, and snipers climbed onto the roofs of buildings to kill anyone who moved.
Journalist Shaza Al-Sabbagh was killed while she was with her nephews, and Mahmoud Al-Jalqamousi and his son were killed and his daughter was injured while trying to get water, bringing the number of people killed by these services during their siege to nine.
Similar to the response of the Occupation and its spokesmen when they commit a crime and deny responsibility for it, the spokesman for the Palestinian Authority’s security services, Anwar Rajab, issued shameless statements to blame the factions and hold them responsible for the killings, which contradicted the testimonies of eye-witnesses who were at the scene of the crime when it happened.
Furthermore, in order to falsify the facts and to enable the Palestinian Authority to pass its narrative, it worked on fighting the free media, especially Al Jazeera. Abbas issued a decision to close Al Jazeera’s offices in Ramallah and freeze its broadcast, and instructed a local court to block its websites, in line with a previous decision by the Occupation government to ban Al Jazeera’s broadcast for the same reasons that prompted him to take such a decision – which is to expose the crimes of the Occupation forces during their storming of the Jenin camp earlier.
At this dangerous and tough time the Palestinian people are living, not a single politician with the slightest degree of logic and reason would make a decision to besiege a camp that is considered in the Palestinian history as one of the fortresses that bear witness to the catastrophe of the Palestinian people since 1948, and which the Occupation is trying with all its power to remove from the list of witnesses. The Occupation had, indeed, tried through repeated raids over the last year to do so, but it failed.
Sincere efforts were made by various civil society organisations and groups to bring the concerned parties to the negotiating table, but the President of the Palestinian Authority aborted all these attempts, preferring to submit to the desires of Tel Aviv and Washington, and implement agendas that fragment the unity of the Palestinian people, and expose their security and safety to danger.
Abbas, on the UN platforms is used to demand protection from the international community and implementing resolutions on ending the Occupation.
Yesterday, the representative of the Palestinian Authority in the Security Council shed tears due to the horrific crimes committed by the Occupation in the Gaza Strip against the medical facility, staff, and the ongoing attacks on hospitals, the latest of which was the burning of Kamal Adwan Hospital.
How could the international community take them seriously? Should it protect the Palestinian people from the crimes of the Occupation or from the crimes of the Palestinian Authority? The Palestinian Authority’s apparatuses have turned Jenin Hospital into a military barracks and attacked medical staff during the ongoing siege on Jenin camp.
It is a surreal scene caused by a corrupt group with special interests, who are specialists in concluding deals and begging at the doorsteps of the Occupiers to obtain privileges that enable them and their families to live in comfort at the expense of the rights, security, safety and well-being of the Palestinian people while, at the same time, it issued some statements condemning the crimes of the Occupation, in order to cover up its own corruption.
Throughout ancient and contemporary history, peoples who have been subjected to Occupation have suffered from a handful of weak-willed individuals or groups organised by the Occupation to destroy the morale of these peoples, and attempted to subjugate them to transform this Occupation into permanent colonialism, but all these attempts failed when the people gathered their capabilities and were determined to get rid of the Occupation, just as the Europeans did when they confronted the Nazi occupation and their agents.
The Palestinian people have experienced such phenomena for a hundred years. During the British Mandate, the so-called “Peace Units” were formed in 1936, which were used by colonialism and Zionists to spy on people and pursue and assassinate activists in national liberation movements.
Over time, after their mission was completed, they were disposed of, and the Palestinian people have continued to struggle and fight tirelessly to this day.
The fate of the Palestinian Authority and its apparatuses is bleak and unknown, and there is a great feeling of anger among the population regarding its policies. It has become a huge burden for its supporters as well, after it has exhausted its mission for which it was made.
Today, the extreme right that leads the Occupation government finds a good opportunity to impose sovereignty over the West Bank, expel the leadership of the Palestinian Authority, and transform the security services into traffic police!
It is no longer possible to reform these services and unite them into one security service that watches over the Palestinian people and their protection. They have become accustomed to a method of work that only serves the Occupation and its agendas, and advising Abbas to change the course of his political authority will be of no use. It is too late, period. The damage he has caused to the most just cause in history cannot be repaired through advice.
Abbas will soon be turning 90, and he continues deliberately to ignore the dangers surrounding the Palestinian people. The Occupation is closing in on him to the point that his very existence is threatened. Killing, arrests and settlements are at their peak, and the decision to annex the West Bank is ready, waiting for Trump to enter the White House. If the dreams of Smotrich and the current right-wing government are accomplished, what fate awaits Abbas and his Authority?!
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
Opinion
The PA’s bid to crush resistance in Jenin camp won't give it keys to Gaza
If the Palestinian Authority thinks its operation in Jenin will secure it US approval for a role in post-war Gaza it is much mistaken, writes Lamis Andoni.
The New Arab
the PA's pretexts for its operation in Jenin are unacceptable and must be condemned, even if they stem from its desire to pre-emptively avoid provoking the wrath of the incoming US administration, writes Lamis Andoni [photo credit: Getty Images]
The vicious campaign being conducted by the Palestinian Authority (PA) against the Jenin refugee camp is incomprehensible.
Equally incomprehensible are the statements being issued by the PA's security apparatus – including claims by its spokesman, Anwar Rajab that they are targeting "mercenaries" controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
On the one hand this claim completely ignores the plentiful evidence that it is in fact Israeli agents that have a foothold in the camp, which has lead to numerous betrayals of resistance fighters, assassinations and arrests.
On the other hand, accusing Jenin's youth of being Iranian agents is to take an explicit stance which serves Israel in its ongoing battle to eradicate Palestinian resistance.
It’s clear that the PA intends to disarm the Jenin Brigades by terrorising the whole camp. In this approach, it is sending an unequivocal message to Palestinian fighters from all factions - including Fatah - which is that the era of armed resistance against Israel is over.
Narrated Yara Hawari
The resistance groups it is targeting are those who emerged following Israel's May 2021 war on Gaza, when multi-factional groups formed, including members from Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and also Fatah (the faction that dominates the PA). For instance, most members of the Lion's Den, which bravely confronted the Israeli occupation army in Nablus, were Fatah affiliates.
For objectivity's sake it must be acknowledged that there has long been an issue with the unchecked distribution and use of weapons, particularly involving PIJ (whose members form the backbone of the Jenin Brigades, but which members from other factions including Fatah have joined since its inception in the camp). This is a real problem.
However, why has the PA not sought to address it through communicating directly with the PIJ's leadership? The PA is more than capable of sending its delegates to speak with senior members of the organisation, including its leader Ziad al-Nakhalah.
It should be noted here that Fatah's presence in the camp, which had been composed of young members who believe in resistance, has declined due to Israel's repeated military operations and the arrest and imprisonment of many of them. At the forefront of those currently in Israeli jails is Jamal Hawil, Fatah's most powerful representative in the camp, who participated in effective armed resistance to Israel's siege of Jenin camp during the Second Intifada (2000).
He also stood firm against previous attempts by the PA to subjugate resistance in the camp, and would undoubtedly have been fighting now against their efforts were it not for Israel's decision to extend his prison sentence – maybe due to PA accusations that Iran is pulling the strings of the Jenin Brigades, a claim that perfectly suits Tel Aviv and Washington.
Perspectives Emad Moussa
Israel's string of military-security campaigns across the West Bank, which have seen them assassinate resistance fighters, demolish homes, and roll out collective punishments, have terrorised the people of the West Bank - and now the PA security forces are joining them in their crackdown on Jenin camp. This is a step they wouldn't have dared take if the Jenin Brigades were unified, and Fatah's leaders in the camp had refused the PA's "security solution".
Statements by the PA's security services - that Iran is behind the armed fighters in Jenin – seek both to benefit from Iran's declining regional influence and to send an implicit message to the Palestinian people under occupation in the West Bank and Jerusalem. The content of this message is that the presence of these armed fighters in their midst will unleash disaster on them, and provoke Israeli retaliation, mirroring the genocidal war ongoing in Gaza.
This message speaks to genuine fears among Palestinians in the West Bank. However, the issue is that the PA has not presented any alternative approach - other than failure and collusion with the Israeli occupiers. Moreover, the Palestinian resistance has long been unable to find anyone who will support and arm them except Iran. Fatah also encountered this problem during its lengthy history of struggle.
Far from presenting an alternative source of support, the Arab states are actively stifling all resistance efforts, with some of them deeply invested in normalisation deals and alliances with Israel. This has seen Arab support for criminalising resistance, even adding their clout to Israel's attempts to pressure the PA to stop salaries for prisoners and the families of the martyrs' – which has been one of the red lines the PA has been unwilling to cede ground on until now.
Perspectives Jenna Abuhasna
After all this, the PA then has the audacity to announce, via its security spokesman Rajab, that Iran is responsible for "the chaos in the West Bank".
Does the PA seriously believe Iran is controlling the situation in the West Bank? Or that Iran will use Jenin camp to plot and organise a coup against it? Moreover, what will the PA's stance be if Israel mounts a full-scale invasion of the West Bank under the pretext of "combatting terrorist organisations controlled by Iran"? If this happens, the Israeli army won't differentiate between Fatah, Hamas, PIJ and any other Palestinian, whether from the PA or elsewhere – it never has.
What is shameful and tragic is that at the very moment Palestine most desperately needs national unity, the PA is making spurious claims that Iran may be controlling the camp – that is, the Jenin Battalion - whose resistance operations provoked Israeli ex-Defence Minister Benny Gantz to describe Jenin Camp (according to an interview on 11 April 2022) as "a strategic threat to Israel which must be defeated".
In short, the PA's pretexts for its operation in Jenin are unacceptable and must be condemned, even if they stem from its desire to pre-emptively avoid provoking the wrath of the incoming US administration and president Donald Trump – who seems to have every regime preoccupied with how to win his favour.
The suffering in Gaza cannot be described or imagined, from the starvation, to the freezing temperatures, to the indiscriminate and relentless killing, and endless forced displacement. Every story that comes out is more horrific than the last, with the horrors only magnified by the total indifference of the US and Western states that continue acting as though no genocide is taking place.
Perspectives Yoav Litvin
It is this suffering that must galvanise action by all - instead of being distracted by a struggle to bolster an authority devoid of real power.
In the meantime, the voices of intellectuals, artists, and global activists are clamouring in support of Palestinian rights. Their criticism of the current US administration means it is waging a repressive campaign against critics of Israel, which is all paving the way for the coming stage of even more draconian repression under Trump. The incoming administration will have no qualms about crushing the right to freedom of expression in the US.
Meanwhile, the Arab regimes suffer from a chronic affliction, which is their lack of - and longstanding search for - a role which will render them pertinent to US interests. However, the role being drawn up for the PA by the incoming president will involve its total abandonment of the Palestinian cause, if Trump deigns to accept a Palestinian Authority in the first place.
We must now urgently work to preserve the gains and achievements of the resistance, and not waste the efforts that have already been made to mount international lawsuits against Israel. We must push for these to move forward.
Conversely, the PA is fighting Palestinians, and in fact itself, because everyone will be depicted as nothing but Iranian agents. They are not considering that Palestinian organisations have always suffered, and still suffer, from the label of terrorism, and that the US still hasn't removed the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) off its "terrorist list".
The PA should immediately withdraw its forces from Jenin camp, and desist from using "chaos" as a pretext - even if chaos exists - as there are many alternative ways to deal with it. It must also stop levelling accusations which could have dire consequences for the Palestinian people.
Finally, if it truly believes that once it has joined the ranks of Iran's regional opponents this will secure it a role in managing "post-war Gaza" it is mistaken. Washington's interests lie in the total liquidation of the Palestinian cause - not in the PA volunteering its efforts to "fight against Iran" in Jenin camp.
Lamis Andoni is a Palestinian journalist, writer and academic who launched The New Arab as its editor-in-chief.
This is an edited and abridged translation from our Arabic edition. To read the original article click here.
Translated by Rose Chacko
Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff, or the author's employer.
Tensions rise in the West Bank as PA ‘siege’ on Jenin continues
JENIN IS A CITY, A CAMP IN NAME ONLY
The Palestinian Authority's deadly military operation in Jenin continues to fan the flames of internal tensions in the West Bank. Meanwhile, Israeli leaders are calling for 'Gaza-like' operations in the West Bank, and to cut all ties with the PA.
January 8, 2025
Palestinian security forces gather at the site of a protest against clashes between Palestinian security forces and militants in the northern occupied West Bank city of Jenin on December 21, 2024.
(Photo: Mohammed Nasser/APA Images)
The occupied West Bank has returned to the headlines in recent weeks, as tensions spurred on both by Israel and the Palestinian Authority threaten to destabilize an already volatile situation in the territory.
On Tuesday, tensions flared after the killing of three Israelis and the wounding of eight in a shooting attack near Qalqilya, in the north east of the Palestinian territory. The shooting provoked a series of Israeli reactions, with high-ranking officials calling for large-scale “Gaza-like” Israeli military actions in the West Bank.
Following the shooting near Qalqilya, Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich stated that Israel should “pass from defense to offense” in the West Bank, adding that “Jenin and Nablus must look like Jabalia so that Kfar Saba wouldn’t look like Kfar Azza.” Jabalia is the city in northern Gaza that was the target of a massive ethnic cleansing campaign by the Israeli military late last year, resulting in the near total de-population of the area, widespread destruction, and the killing and abduction of hundreds. Kfar Saba is a city in central Israel, and Kfra Azza is the Israeli kibbutz in the south that was attacked on October 7, 2023.
Far-right Israeli National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, commented on the shooting in Qalqilya saying that “those who seek to end the war in Gaza will have a war in the West Bank,” and called to “cut all ties with the Palestinian Authority,” which according to him “supports terror.”
The head of the Israeli settlements’ councils, Yossi Dagan, called upon the Israeli army to increase its crackdown on Palestinians, arguing that “if the army had sealed off Nablus and inspected every person going in and out of it, the attack wouldn’t have happened,” calling the state of Israel to “confiscate all Palestinian weapons and fight Abu Mazen [the president of the Palestinian Authority] who allows these acts.”
On Monday, the Israeli cabinet met to discuss the situation in the West Bank, upon the request of Bezalel Smotrich. Following the meeting, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu announced that Netanyahu had approved “new defense and attack measures in the West Bank.” Israel’s war minister Yizrael Katz also said that Israel “will not tolerate a reality in the West Bank similar to the one in Gaza,” adding that the Israeli army “will conduct wide operations in the [Palestinian] towns where terrorists come from.”
Israel has been carrying out large military offensives in the West Bank, especially its northern part for more than three years. However, these new threats are especially alarming as they come only two weeks before the inauguration of the Trump administration, believed to be supportive of Israeli plans to annex the West Bank. In November, Smotrich said that 2025 will be the year of Israel annexation of the West Bank.
Palestinian Authority continues deadly Jenin operation
The Israeli calls for escalation in the West Bank come amidst an ongoing military campaign by the Palestinian Authority, the body that has limited governance in areas of the West Bank, against Palestinian armed resistance groups the Jenin refugee camp.
The clashes between Palestinian Authority Security Forces (PASF) and the Jenin Brigade fighters have so far left 14 Palestinians killed, including six PASF members, one Jenin Brigade fighter, and seven civilians, including children and a journalist. Throughout its operation, which the PA launched in early December 2024, it has cut off electricity and water to the camp, drawing backlash from residents and the resistance fighters alike, who accused the PA of “enforcing a siege” on Jenin. The spokesperson of the PA security forces, Anwar Rajab, has rejected the accusations, saying that “circulation in and out of the camp” continues normally, and accused the Jenin Brigade fighters of shooting at electricity and water maintenance teams.
“We’ve been living for a month without electricity,” a resident of the Jenin camp who requested anonymity told Mondoweiss. “People gather at night around fire stoves, while some young men try to extend electricity cables from poles outside of the camp,” they described. “Clashes erupt suddenly and then calm down, but people prefer to stay indoors to avoid stray fire, and they avoid going on the roof after a man and his son were shot on the house roof.”
“Many people left the camp entirely, and only those who have no relatives outside the camp remain,” they went on. “I myself left to my aunt’s house in the city, and when I came back to the camp to check on the house, the PA security forces inspected my identification document and kept it before letting me in, and gave it back to me when I came back to leave the camp again,” they said. “Life inside the camp is paralysed, everything is closed, and those who can leave are leaving,” they added.
According to the Jenin camp’s popular services committee, around 3,000 out of the 15,000 residents of the camp have left due to the fighting. Such mass exoduses from the camp have previously been witnessed during similar days-long operations by the Israeli military, which frequently attacks Jenin and the refugee camp to target the resistance fighters there.
The escalation of events in Jenin has raised tensions in the West Bank, with Palestinians outraged at the PA’s actions. On social media, many Palestinians have called the operation “a shame” and accused the PA of fighting the resistance for political gains, either to make itself relevant to the coming Trump administration, and to Israel, in order to maintain some power in the West Bank under a potential annexation, or in post-war governance in Gaza.
The PA, for its part, has continued to insist that its operation is aimed at “taking the Jenin camp back from outlaw elements,” and “preventing turning the West Bank into Gaza,”. PASF spokesperson Anwar Rajab also said that “the outlaws in Jenin want to weaken the PA to fulfill regional agendas and destroy the Palestinian national project.”
Meanwhile, the PA has extended its crackdown to other areas of the West Bank, conducting a series of arrests in the West Bank, targeting resistance fighters and Palestinian citizens who have criticized the PA’s operation in Jenin. Ammar Dweik, the head of the Palestinian independent commission for human rights, the official Palestinian human rights watchdog, said on Sunday that there have been “at least 150 arrests, some of them of Jenin Brigade members, but some of their family members.” Dweik also said that there have been reports of mistreatment of detainees documented in video footage.
The PA also ordered the shut down of Al-Jazeera’s office in Ramallah and banned its activities in the territories controlled by the PA. The widely criticized move came after the channel aired critical coverage of the PA’s Jenin operation. After the ban, which has been compared to a similar shut down of Al Jazeera by Israel last year, Palestinian internet providers blocked Al Jazeera’s stream from their services in compliance with the PA’s order. The decision received backlash from local and international media and human rights organizations, including Reporters Without Borders, the Palestinian human Rights Center, and the UN secretary General Antonio Guterres.
In response to the PA’s crackdown, the human rights commission called upon the PA to open an investigation into all the cases of killed Palestinians in Jenin from both sides, and to release the results to the public. Meanwhile, a coalition of Palestinian political parties, civil society bodies, unions, and public figures including some members of Fatah, the PA’s ruling party, launched a “social initiative” to end the crisis in Jenin, calling on both sides to show self-restraint and resort to dialogue. The initiative presented a proposal for a “holistic national dialogue” to contain the crisis and prevent its expansion to other parts of the Palestinian territory.
The internal Palestinian escalation in Jenin comes on the heels of several years of rising social tensions in the West Bank. While armed resistance groups in the West Bank, which have seen a resurgence over the past three years, have received widespread public support and popularity, the PA has witnessed the opposite. The PA has grown increasingly unpopular, in part due to policies like security coordination with Israel. Unfavorable attitudes towards the authority have only grown since October 7, 2023, and what has been perceived as inaction by the PA to stop the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.
Internal tensions in the West Bank have only been exacerbated by Israeli threats of annexation and increasing its violence against Palestinians, as the PA increases its Since the beginning of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, in October 2023, Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 821 Palestinians, while Israeli settlers have displaced some 25 Palestinian Bedouin communities in the West Bank’s rural areas.
