Confrontations between Palestinian youth and Palestinian Authority’s ‘security forces’ in Nablus. (File Photo: via QNN)
The Palestinian Authority security forces on Tuesday suppressed a protest in Nablus to demand the release of political prisoners held by the PA, Quds Press news site reported.
Dozens of masked members of the PA security forces attacked the participants, including the families of political detainees, and fired gas canisters at them, suffocating a number.
The PA forces also assaulted journalists covering the event and prevented them from filming, confiscating their mobile devices.
Palestinian Authority Security Forces attacked a recent protest in Nablus calling for the release of Palestinian political prisoners.
The participants demanded the release of Musab Shtayyeh and other political detainees currently held by the Palestinian Authority, who are being pursued by the Israeli occupation.
Lawyers and human rights organizations confirmed earlier that 2022 witnessed a significant rise in the campaigns of prosecution, arrests, and summons orders issued by the Palestinian Authority security services against politicians, activists, freed prisoners, and university students.
On 11 October, Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli soldier near the illegal Jewish settlement of Shavei Shomron, west of the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. On the same day, masked men opened fire on four other Israeli targets on the outskirts of the city.
A total of five operations were carried out in one day, reportedly by the recently established resistance faction called the Lion’s Den (Areen Al-Osood) who claimed responsibility for them.
On Sunday, an unusual top level security meeting was held in Israel, on the eve of a national festival, which included Prime Minister Yair Lapid, alternate Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Defense Minister Benny Gantz, National Security Council Chairman Eyal Hulata, Mossad Chief David Barnea, Shin Bet Chief Ronen Bar, and Military Intelligence Chief Aharon Haliva, according to Israeli media reports.
The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the new West Bank resistance phenomenon, the Lion’s Den, which Haaretz calls a “major headache” for the Israeli state. Earlier that day, Israel’s Defense Ministry denied entry permits for 164 Palestinian family members allegedly related to the Lions’ Den.
Who are the Lion’s Den?
What do we know so far about the Lion’s Den, a West Bank resistance group that Defense Minister Gantz admits poses a challenge to Israeli security, demanding repeatedly that the Palestinian Authority (PA) limit its expansion?
The first nucleus of this group was formed last February in Nablus, when Israeli security forces assassinated Muhammad al-Dakhil, Ashraf Mubaslat and Adham Mabrouka, all members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the military arm of the Fatah movement.
The three were friends with Jamil al-Amouri, a leader in the Al-Quds Brigades, the military arm of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and founder of the Jenin Brigades, who was assassinated by Israeli forces in early June 2021.
In retaliation, the trio, along with Ibrahim al-Nabulsi, were involved in a string of shooting operations at occupation army checkpoints in the city. The lack of support from Fatah to which they belong, prompted them to seek assistance from other factions, most notably Hamas and PIJ, who provided them with material and logistical support.
After the assassination of Nabulsi on 9 August, 2022, he and the others became national icons for the Palestinian public, joining the extensive list of celebrated martyrs from Nablus. Political researcher Majd Dargham told The Cradle that “Nablus has a special status in relation to the Palestinian Authority and Fatah movement, which does not allow any other organization to be active in it.”
As the Nablus Brigade of the Al-Quds Brigades did not have much chance of success, there was a need to form new non-partisan groups, consisting mostly of Fatah fighters. This is how the Lion’s Den was born, and how within a short period it has transformed into a cross-faction group dominated by the Fatah members.
The leader speaks
The leader of the Lion’s Den, who spoke to The Cradle on condition of anonymity, stressed that his group was “founded for resistance. We renounce partisanship, and we work in unity for God and the nation, and we extend our hand to every member of any faction who wants to engage with us away from his party affiliation.”
In the past month, the military operations of the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank have led to the killing of four Israeli soldiers, and about 800 confrontation events have been recorded.
In a report by Haaretz entitled “Nablus’ Lion’s Den has become a major headache for Israel and the Palestinian Authority,” the authors of the article, Yaniv Kubovich and Jack Khoury, posit that the main problem with this new resistance group is that most of its members belong to Fatah and hail from large families in Nablus.
This places the PA in an embarrassing situation because any operation targeting the Lion’s Den by the Israeli-backed Palestinian security forces will mean the PA shoots itself in the foot, and destroys what remains of its legitimacy among Fatah and its supporters.
While recognizing that “the situation in the West Bank is very sensitive,” Gantz said in a press statement that eliminating the Lion’s Den whose number does not exceed 30 young men, is “possible.”
However, the group’s leader responded to this by telling The Cradle: “Gantz will be surprised very soon by our numbers and methods of work and how far we can reach.” According to Dergham, the popularity of The Lion’s Den is not limited to the old city of Nablus – rather, its influence now extends to all parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
He adds: “Ibrahim al-Nabulsi, Muhammad al-Azizi, Abboud Sobh and others have turned into icons. Whoever assaults them, or arrests their friends, will appear to be a security agent for the occupation, and this is what the authority (PA) cannot tolerate.”
“Keep your arms”
In advance of his assassination, Ibrahim al-Nabulsi left behind a message in simple colloquial Arabic, in which he said: “For the sake of the honor of your families, keep your arms.”
These words formed the founding charter of the Lion’s Den, which appeared for the first time on 2 September at the memorial ceremony held for their martyred fighters Muhammad al-Azizi and Abd Al-Rahman Subh, who were killed by Israeli forces during a military raid in Nablus on 24 July.
Wearing all black, fully masked, and with weapons held high and close to their right, the members of the Lion’s Den marched through the streets and alleys of Nablus’ old city, with hundreds of people in attendance.
One of the masked men recited the group’s charter, in which he proclaimed the Lion’s Den as “a phenomenon of continuous resistance derived from its unity on the ground, and from the roots of the past revolution.”
He added that “the arrogance of the occupation impose on us as resistance fighters renewed battles, the shape of which the occupation may not expect, especially since this organized and self-managed resistance is able every day to renew the blood in the veins of the resistance in many forms and methods.”
He also reminded fellow members “not to leave the gun under any circumstances and to direct it at the occupation, its settlers, and those who collaborate with the enemy,” and called on their “brothers in the [PA] security services to unite and direct our guns toward the occupation only.”
Popularity of the pride
On 19 September, the PA’s security services arrested Hamas member, Musab Shtayyeh, who is also one of the leaders of The Lion’s Den. In response, the group called for demonstrations that included clashes with Palestinian policemen.
After two days of tension and protests, the group released a statement saying that “the internal fighting only serves the occupation, and our guns will only be directed at the enemy.” Calm returned to the city, and since then, the Lion’s Den fighters have carried out dozens of shooting attacks on settler cars and Israeli military checkpoints.
Due to the group’s rising popularity across the West Bank, several Palestinian factions have sought to claim affiliation with the Lion’s Den, prompting the resistance group to issue statements that it acts independently. The Lion’s Den leader tells The Cradle: “The Qassam, Saraya [Al-Quds Brigades] and Fatah members who operate within the den are involved in a national framework, and do not represent their parties.”
“All are our brothers. When the protests over the arrest of Musab Shtayyeh were about to develop into a strife, we chose to end it, to direct our compass to the occupier,” he explained.
The Hebrew Channel 13, which describes the group as a “terrorist organization,” concedes that: “in less than a year, [the Lion’s Den] have transformed from an obscure organization into an organization that has more influence than all known Palestinian factions, and threatens the security of the Israelis and the stability of the Palestinian Authority.”
Reclaiming territory
A source in the Palestinian resistance in Nablus confirms to The Cradle that the Lion’s Den has indeed expanded the resistance in the West Bank from confronting military incursions and random raids, to organized operations against the collective occupation forces.
The recent operations have illustrated that they are working according to a well-thought-out strategy based on undermining any chance of order that the occupation army and settlers seek to enforce in the cities of the West Bank.
Nevertheless, the Den’s leader expects difficult days ahead in Nablus, the group’s stronghold. In addition to a major security campaign that Israeli forces may launch on the city at any moment to eliminate the group’s infrastructure, the compliant PA is making great efforts to contain the group.
Recently, the PA offered to co-opt Lion’s Den members in its security services, in exchange for an Israeli guarantee that they would not be pursued. The group’s leader responded thus: “We rejected all offers. We will not exploit the blood of martyrs for personal gain.”
According to observers, the new resistance faction has progressed to such an extent that it is now firmly beyond the stage of possible containment or elimination, and the coming days will likely witness its expansion to various West Bank cities and camps.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
The Palestinian resistance factions of the West Bank are no longer fractured and in disarray, and the results speak for themselves
The Israeli army’s recent incursions into the cities and refugee camps of the northern occupied-West Bank are not going as smoothly as before.
The occupation army’s incursions into the city of Jenin and Jenin refugee camp in early September required the mobilization of large forces, including special units and armored vehicles – in scale, unprecedented since 2014.
On the night of 6 September, a force of about 100 vehicles carried out a raid in Jenin, supported by air with drones, and on land, by hundreds of soldiers from Israel’s elite military units.
Their task? To demolish the house of Ra’ad Hazem, who carried out the Dizengoff attack in Tel Aviv on 7 April, 2022. More than anything, this excessive military build-up over a single home demolition illustrates that the Israeli military can no longer operate in the West Bank as they did before the May 2021 ‘Sayf Al Quds’ conflagration – and its subsequent developments.
After the 6 September operation – which resulted in the death of three Israelis and wounded 14 – the occupation army launched Operation ‘Break the Waves’ in response to the rapid expansion of Palestinian resistance factions and fervor in the West Bank.
The re-emergence of resistance in the West Bank
Break the Waves’ objective, according to then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, was to “attack without borders in order to stop the [resistance] operations” – four of which were carried out in cities in occupied territories – and to destroy the infrastructure of the resistance factions in Jenin and Nablus.
Five months after the Tel Aviv attack, the situation in the West Bank remains tense and is heading toward further escalation. In the interim, three new resistance battalions have been announced in Nablus, Tulkarm and Tubas.
Between 2007 and 2021, the resistance factions, particularly Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), remained stuck in a vicious cycle. The enemy’s surgical strikes were hindering their proactive initiatives, and until 2020, their activities were limited to the formation of fighting cells that were able to carry out one or two attacks before being incapacitated.
Since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, Palestinian Authority (PA) security services have fully collaborated with the occupation authorities to pursue these resistance factions, for fear of having the Gaza model repeated in the West Bank.
The genesis lies in Jenin
The rejuvenation of resistance in the occupied West Bank can be attributed to the martyr Jamil al-Amouri. A prominent figure in the Jenin camp, Amouri was considered the most “wanted” by the occupation state for carrying out several shooting attacks against Israeli positions around Jenin, during the 2021 battle of Sayf al-Quds.
He effectively contributed to the formation of active military cells inside the camp, which later went on to form the nucleus of the Jenin Brigade.
In early June 2021, Amouri was assassinated, along with Lieutenant Adham Yasser Tawfiq Alawi from Nablus, and Captain Tayseer Mahmoud Othman Eissa from Jenin. The deaths of a PIJ commander along with two officers from the PA’s Military Intelligence effectively broke the ice between the PIJ on the one hand, and the Fatah movement and members of the security services in Jenin and Nablus, on the other.
This also led to a subtle change in the popular resistance factions’ perception of the PA security services, who for years have been accused of being agents of the occupation.
As political researcher Muhammad Dargham told The Cradle: “The martyrdom of Amouri with two officers from the security services removed the veil from the eyes of many supporters of the [Palestinian] Authority and the Fatah who woke up after thirteen years and found themselves guards of security coordination with Israel.”
PIJ and Fatah: setting aside differences
According to Dargham, the killing of Amouri, Alawi, and Eissa created harmony – at least in the Jenin camp – between the Al-Quds Brigades and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades – the respective armed wings of the PIJ and Fatah.
Three months after Amouri’s murder, five Palestinian prisoners belonging to the PIJ movement, along with the leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, Zakaria Al-Zubaidi, managed to escape from Gilboa Prison, the most fortified of all Israeli prisons. Two of the six, Ayham Kamamji and Monadel Nafeat, managed to reach Jenin refugee camp.
By 19 September, 2021, all escapees were re-captured. However the date is also notable for the establishment of the Jenin Brigade – the first semi-organized resistance formation in the West Bank in 17 years. Importantly, while the Brigade was founded by PIJ operatives, it also consists of members of the armed wings of political rivals Hamas and Fatah.
Resistance spreads like wild fire
For many years, Israel ruled out the success of any semi-organized resistance action in the West Bank cities and refugee camps. This is due to the occupation’s adoption of a “maximum integration” policy that linked all aspects of the daily lives of Palestinians in the West Bank to Israel.
The occupation also adopted its “mowing the lawn” policy, which sought to target all resistances cells by arresting or killing its members.
These strategies were designed to send the message that any attempt to resist is doomed to failure, and the fate of those who undertake it will be life imprisonment or assassination.
However, what transpired in September 2021 was different from all Israeli estimates. The Jenin Brigade maintained its military continuity, and the attempts to storm the Jenin refugee camp became much more costly for the Israelis.
Previously, any Israeli force that invaded the camp was met with stone-throwing and firecrackers. But over the course of a year and three months, the alliance of Al-Quds Brigades and Al-Aqsa Brigades raised the bar considerably, and stands as testament to the benefits of a united armed front for the resistance.
This was noticeable about a year after the launch of the Jenin Brigade. On 24 May, 2022, clashes erupted in the area of the Prophet Joseph’s tomb, near Balata and Askar refugee camps, east of Nablus. Israeli settlers used to enter this area without any confrontation except for stone throwing.
On that day, though, the confrontations developed into an armed clash that seemed organized and with purpose. A few days later, Al-Quds Brigades issued a statement announcing the launch of the Nablus Brigade.
One month earlier, three resistance fighters from the Al-Quds Brigades were killed in a clash with the Israeli army. One of the three, Saif Abu Libdeh, from the Ain Shams camp in Tulkarem, had worked for months to establish the infrastructure for a group that would be announced six weeks after his death, under the name Tulkarem Brigade. This was followed by the formation of another battalion – the Tubas Brigade in June.
The occupation state: feeling the heat
According to the Israeli army’s Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi, the occupation forces have foiled “hundreds of operations” since the beginning of the Operation Break the Wave, and carried out more than 1,500 precautionary arrests.
Indeed, the first half of this year witnessed more than 3,700 Palestinian attacks in the West Bank, during which 21 settlers were killed and 316 wounded, including 2,692 attacks with stones, 577 with Molotov cocktails, 542 with burning tires, 33 with explosive devices, 30 with fireworks, 25 with paint bottles, 14 shootings, 1 case of hit and run, 4 cases of stabbing (with 7 foiled).
However, these numbers maybe underrepresented. For instance, in one week alone (28 August to 3 September 2022), 12 soldiers and settlers were injured, and about 90 points of confrontation were observed, including one stabbing attack, 22 shooting attacks, and 15 throwing explosive devices and Molotov cocktails.
Point of no return
There is consensus among the Israeli security establishment, think-tanks, and military analysts that the situation on the ground in the West Bank has reached a point of no return. The question that worries Israel is: Is it possible to eliminate the new resistance developments – or at least keep them confined to the northern West Bank and prevent their expansion to southern cities such as Hebron and Bethlehem, or central cities such as Jerusalem and Ramallah?
This Israeli concern is justified considering that the beginning of September bore serious consequences for the Israelis. On 4 September, three Palestinians from Jenin (a father and his two sons) shot at a bus carrying Kfir unit recruits in the Jordan Valley, injuring more than seven Israeli soldiers.
Until now, the results of the investigations have not been announced, but it seems that the attack was carefully planned in terms of timing, and choice of location, where there were fewer surveillance cameras at work.
A few days later, the Israeli army aborted an attempt by a Palestinian youth from Nablus from carrying out an operation in central Tel Aviv. The police suggested that the young man “infiltrated through a hole in the wall in the Tulkarem area,” where the army deployed three infantry battalions to thwart further attempts.
There is yet another event that suggests the resistance action in the West Bank is growing. At dawn, on Thursday 8 September, members of the Jenin Brigade detonated a locally manufactured explosive device targeting a military jeep during a raid of one of the neighboring camps.
It turned out that the device was controlled remotely, which represented a major technical development for the resistance factions, whose infrastructure was destroyed at the end of the Second Intifada.
Israelis are fanning the flames
The Israeli Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv believes that the PIJ has succeeded in transforming the northern West Bank into a hotbed of resistance, as well as in smuggling weapons and money to Palestinian cities and camps.
These concerns coincide with expressed doubts over the efficacy of Israel’s “mowing the lawn” policy, which has fueled the “vicious cycle of blood,” according to Amos Harel, a military analyst writing for Haaretz newspaper.
In an article he wrote earlier this month, Harel asked whether the Israeli army is quelling the West Bank’s flames, or actually fanning them.
Avi Iskharov, an analyst in Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, opined that Israel is facing a “new situation” that is not similar to the two previous intifadas of 1987 and 2000, pointing out that “there are pockets of Palestinian gunmen in Nablus and Jenin (in the northern West Bank), who clash almost every night with the army and shoot at Israeli targets.”
Sources close to the resistance brigades in the West Bank told The Cradle that “Israel’s concerns are exaggerated for use in the upcoming election campaign.”
“What we are seeing today is the result of years of [resistance] efforts. As the train has set off, returning to the starting point means acceptance of our mass killing, and this is out of the question,” says one Palestinian source.
Israel: The PA is not collaborating enough
The Israelis have sought to place the blame for their inability to eliminate the resistance brigades and to abort operations in the occupied territories squarely on the PA in Ramallah, who they feel are failing to fulfill their obligations.
Israel’s Kan channel quoted an Israeli official as saying that “the Palestinian security services should increase their activity in the cities of the West Bank to prevent further escalation.”
As for the Palestinians, the corruption-ridden PA is too weak to play a pivotal role in curbing the resistance which enjoys broad Palestinian popular support. Any further association made between the PA with the Israeli security campaigns will make it lose what is left of its flagging legitimacy.
The Hebrew Walla website quoted Minister of Civil Affairs Hussein al-Sheikh, the PA’s channel of communication with the Israelis, as saying: “It is Israel that has weakened the [Palestinian] Authority through daily incursions into the Palestinian areas.”
“The authority cannot accept a reality in which the army storms the occupied territories every night, then we are asked to work during the day against the militants,” added Sheikh.
A dawn of a new era in the West Bank
Meanwhile, the US has been keen to help prop up the PA and help it “restore stability,” by taking measures such as “increasing the number of work permits for Palestinians” in the occupied territories, “pumping economic aid to the Authority from various sources,” and facilitating the movement of Palestinians.
US Assistant Secretary of State for Middle Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf, who recently visited Israel and met with senior security officials, warned that “the situation in the West Bank is worse than it appears and the future of the entire PA is under threat.”
In the early hours of 20 September, PA security forces in Nablus arrested Musab Shtayyeh, a Hamas commander wanted by Israel. Later that day, clashes broke out between the PA and hundreds of Palestinians who hit the streets in protest.
Resistance factions are demanding Shtayyeh’s immediate release and are threatening to bar the PA from Nablus until this is done.
In a video addressing the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian resistance in Jenin cautioned: “we do not want to fight with you, but stay away from us. If you deal in kidnapping, we will also deal in kidnapping.”
The Authority’s unelected President Mahmoud Abbas is in a bind: he fears mutiny from within for collaborating with Israeli security, and fears punishment from Israel for not doing so.
By not adopting a conclusive direction, on a daily basis Abbas drains the PA of further legitimacy and authority, as demonstrated in Nablus today.
In terms of the prospects for Palestinian national liberation, this at least will be a welcome development, as the decline or demise of the western and Israeli-backed PA will open a wide door to revitalized armed resistance in the occupied West Bank.
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