The number of martyrs as a result of the Israeli occupation forces’ raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank is still on the rise, nearly 12 hours after it started.
The toll of martyrs who died as a result of the Israeli raid on the Jenin camp has increased to nine, including one Palestinian woman, Al Mayadeen‘s correspondent to the occupied West Bank reported on Thursday, noting that there were ongoing confrontations between the Israeli occupation forces and Palestinian youths all over the occupied Palestinian territory.
The IOF raided the Jenin camp in occupied Palestine’s West Bank early on Thursday morning, leaving residents and popular resistance groups with no choice but to defend themselves and confront the occupation forces.
The Palestinian Health Ministry reported that there were 20 injuries as a result of live munition from the Israeli occupation forces, including three civilians in critical condition while adding that there were dozens of suffocations as a result of the IOF raiding the Jenin Governmental Hospital.
The IOF prevented ambulance crews from accessing the Jenin Camp, opening fire directly on the emergency vehicles, the health ministry said. Meanwhile, photos and videos taken in the camp showed the level of destruction and havoc that the IOF caused all over the refugee camp.
Ramallah revealed that taking the martyrs that rose on Thursday in Jenin into account, the camp has lost 19 people due to Israeli aggression since the start of the year.
The Jenin Brigade revealed that it responded to the Israeli occupation’s aggression in the refugee camp using small arms and improvised weaponry. The resistance faction that there were numerous injuries among the ranks of the IOF.
Local freedom fighters have reported shooting down a UAV that was being controlled by the Israeli occupation forces amid violent confrontations between the resistance and the IOF.
As the confrontations were taking place, the Chief of Staff of the Israeli occupation forces, General Herzl Halevy, ordered that the state of alert be raised precautiously in light of the tensions that “Tel Aviv” sparked in the occupied West Bank by raiding the refugee camp.
The confrontations in Jenin were close-quarters battles, the Israeli Channel 13 reported, noting that they saw the IOF subjected to a hail of bullets and explosive devices.
Resistance prepared
Following the Israeli aggression against the Jenin camp in the northern West Bank, the Palestinian resistance factions denounced the Israeli raid and stressed that “the Israeli enemy will pay the price for its crimes.”
Hamas spokesperson Abdel Latif al-Qanou said, “The ongoing confrontations in Jenin, the Resistance’s engagement in the face of the [Israeli] special forces in Jenin, as well as yesterday’s confrontations in Silwan and al-Tor, bear witness to the rise of a popular Palestinian revolution which will not be hindered until it deters the occupation, put an end to its crimes, and sweeps it off of the land of Palestine.”
“All attempts by the Israeli occupation to kill the morale of our people and break their will by practicing a policy of murder, demolition, and arrest will not succeed and will not achieve security for its army and settlers.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine stressed the need for holding the occupation accountable for its crimes against Palestinians and ensuring that these crimes do not go unpunished.
It called on all Resistance factions and their military wings to confront the occupation, strike its sites and barracks, and take the decision of pursuing confrontation, both political and armed, in the face of the occupation in order to defeat it, throughout Palestine, and put an end to the occupation’s continuous aggressions.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement affirmed that “the steadfastness and valor of the resistance in the Jenin camp is a clear indication that Palestinians value their right, hold on to it, and are defending it, regardless of the sacrifices.”
The movement pointed out that “the resistance is everywhere, ready for the next confrontation in the event that the fascist government and its criminal army continue to attack our people, our land, and our sanctities.”
“The Jenin camp will remain a nightmare that haunts the Zionist enemy and an icon of the rising revolution in the face of the Zionist enemy and its fascist extremist government.”
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أحيت «الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين« ذكرى انطلاقتها الخامسة والخمسين بمهرجان جماهيري حاشد، عصر اليوم، في ساحة الكتيبة غربي مدينة غزة.
وشارك في المهرجان، إلى جانب قادة «الجبهة الشعبية» وأنصارها، عدد من قادة وممثّلي «فصائل العمل الوطني والإسلامي» الفلسطينية، من بينهم حركتا «حماس» و«الجهاد الإسلامي».
وتضمّن الحفل الذي رفع شعار «انطلاقتنا مقاومة» جملة من الرسائل السياسية المهمة، إذ توسط منصة الحفل شعار يظهر خريطة فلسطين كاملة، في إشارة إلى اعتماد توصيات المؤتمر الوطني الثامن، الذي عقدته «الشعبية» في أيار الماضي، ولا سيما الموقف المتعلق بقبول الحلول المرحلية.
إلى جانب ذلك، رفع المشاركون في الحفل صوراً للشهيد القيادي في مجموعات «عرين الأسود» تامر كيلاني، في إشارة إلى حضور «الجبهة الشعبية» في ساحة الضفة.
وفي كلمة خلال المهرجان، قال نائب الأمين العام للجبهة جميل مزهر إن «رفع شعار انطلاقتنا مقاومة هو تأكيد على ثوابت الجبهة بأن لا قبلة لنا سوى فلسطين، كل فلسطين (…) وأن المهرجان فرصة لمكاشفة الجماهير حول كل القضايا الملحة».
وأضاف مزهر: «أزاحتْ الجبهةُ في هذا المؤتمر الخيارَ المرحليَّ عن الطاولةِ واعتبرتْهُ بوابةً للتنازلات، وعادتْ إلى خيارِها الاستراتيجيّ فلسطين كلّ فلسطين»، مؤكداً أن «لا حلولَ ولا تسوياتٍ ولا مفاوضات، فإمّا فلسطين وإما النارُ جيلًا بعدَ جيل».
بدوره، بيّن عضو المكتب السياسي للجبهة، محمد الغول، أن الأخيرة تمتلك موقفاً واضحاً من الاتفاقيات التي وقّعتها السلطة الفلسطينية في أوسلو عام 1993، إذ رفضت آنذاك كل الاتفاقيات، رغم أنها كانت قد قبلت حينها بحلّ الدولتين، بما يضمن حق العودة للاجئين.
ويرى الغول في حديث إلى «الأخبار»: «اليوم، وبعد انتهاء الظروف الدولية التي كانت تدعم وتدفع بحل الدولتين ومنها ثنائية القطب دولياً بين الاتحاد السوفياتي والولايات المتحدة، لم يعد هناك قيمة للتمسك بحلٍ ليس له غطاء دولي، ولا استعداد في الولايات المتحدة الأميركية ولا دولة الاحتلال للتقدم خطوة فيه (…) اليوم، نعيد الصراع إلى مربعه الأول، فلسطين كل فلسطين بدون أي حلول مرحلية ولا تكتيكية».
«الكفاح المسلّح» ولفت مزهر في خطابه أيضاً، إلى تمسك «الجبهة الشعبية» بخيار المقاومة المسلحة، بالقول إن «هزيمةَ هذا العدوّ لن تكونَ إلا بالكفاحِ المسلّح، وبحربِ الشعبِ الشاملة، فاليوم شعبُنا أقربُ من أيّ وقتٍ مضى لهذا». وأشار إلى «ضرورة توفيرِ الدعمِ والإسنادِ لمجموعاتِ المقاومة، وبما يُوسّعُ رقعةَ الاشتباكِ ونوعيّة المواجهة، وهذا يتطلّبُ منا ومن غيرنا تعزيزَ دعمِنا لحواضنِ المقاومة، وتعزيزَ أشكالِ الوحدةِ الميدانيّةِ سياسيًّا وكفاحيًّا (..) لتطويرِ وإدامةِ الاشتباك، والردِّ على عدوانِ الاحتلال.
ووجّه مزهر التحية إلى «كتائب الشهيد أبو علي مصطفى» وإلى «المقاتلينَ الأمميّينَ الذين امتشقوا السّلاحَ من أجلِ فلسطينَ الرفيقُ كزوموتو ورفاقُهُ الشهداء، المناضل جورج عبد الله المعتقلِ في السجونِ الفرنسيّة، والمقاتل ظافر الإيراني منفّذُ أوّلِ عمليّةٍ استشهاديّةٍ بالحزامِ الناسفِ في تاريخِ الثورةِ الفلسطينيّة، التي نفّذها في سينما (حين) في قلبِ عاصمةِ الكيان في ضاحيةِ يافا المحتلّة».
واعتبر الناشط في الجبهة، رامي سامر، في حديث إلى الأخبار أن «أهم رسالة تضمّنها المهرجان، كانت الاستجابة السياسية للتغير الذي طرأ على الظروف المحيطة بالقضية الفلسطينية، ففيما يتجه المحيط العربي إلى التطبيع، وتدوس إسرائيل ومن خلفها الولايات المتحدة حل الدولتين، وننتظر حكومة يمينية متطرفة، تقول الجبهة الشعبية إن الجنون الإسرائيلي يدفع إلى مزيد من المقاومة العنيفة المسلحة، وليس إلى الإذعان والتفريط».
وأضاف إنه «حتى رئيس السلطة محمود عباس يدرك اليوم عبث الرهان على المفاوضات، وعبث الحديث عن حل الدولتين، ويلوّح بالحديث عن العودة للدولة الواحدة. لذا المطلوب اليوم خطاب جامع، يقود إلى سياسات إجرائية يتحمل الجميع أكلافها في سبيل الانعتاق من الاحتلال».
وفي كلمة مصوّرة، قال الأمين العام لحركة «الجهاد الإسلامي» زياد النخالة: «نقف جميعًا بدون تردد، وبدون أوهام، لنقول إننا إذا أردنا حريتنا وتحرير وطننا علينا أن نكمل طريق الشهداء».
MEMBERS OF THE LIONS’ DEN HOLD THEIR WEAPONS NEXT TO A FLAG FLYING THE LIONS’ DEN LOGO DURING A MEMORIAL SERVICE OF MOHAMMED AL-AZIZI AND ABDUL RAHMAN SOBH WHO WERE KILLED BY ISRAELI FORCES, IN THE WEST BANK CITY OF NABLUS ON SEPTEMBER 2, 2022. (PHOTO: SHADI JARAR’AH/ APA IMAGES)
The Lions’ Den was relatively unknown outside of Nablus until a few months ago but today they have gained hero-like status across Palestine — for leading a revival of armed resistance against Israeli colonialism. This is their story.
The streets of the Old City of Nablus are quieter than usual.
The typically bustling streets, filled with the sights, smells, and sounds of one of the oldest markets in Palestine, are almost unrecognizable. Most shops and businesses are shuttered; those who are open are noticeably somber, a far cry from the usual animated calls of street vendors advertising their wares to crowds of shoppers passing by.
“This is not common to Nablus,” Abu Ayyad, 72, told Mondoweiss as he sat inside his shop, packaging halkoum sweets — a Nabulsi version of Turkish Delight which he has been making and selling from his shop in the al-Yasmina neighborhood for over 60 years.
Bullet holes riddle the old stone buildings and the rusting iron doors that line the streets. Some of the destruction dates back to the first and second Intifadas. But the newer cars parked along the cobblestone streets, covered in bullet holes and broken glass, remind passersby of the freshness of these wounds.
“What’s happening now in Nablus reminds me of the level of destruction that happened in 2002 when the Israeli forces invaded Nablus,” Sameh Abdo, 52, a resident of the Old City told Mondoweiss as he passed through the narrow alleyways of the al-Yasmina quarter.
“The destruction of the city, the homes, the buildings. We haven’t seen this type of devastation in years,” he said.
Down the road, one man sits outside his shop, piled with old radios, speakers, and other odds and ends. He smokes his cigarette in silence, soaking in the words of the song blasting on one of the newer speakers in his collection. It’s an anthem dedicated to lions.
There are little to no foreigners present, a new reality created by design, not by accident. The presence of anyone or anything unknown to the locals here is considered a potential threat, and understandably so.
Over the past few months the residents of the Old City have grown increasingly wary and suspicious of any foreign presence in their streets. Too many times, undercover Israeli forces entered the city in disguise, after the blood of the young men who have made these streets their home.
Such was the case on Monday, October 25, just after midnight. The streets were quiet, and in the cover of night, Israeli undercover special forces entered the boundaries of the city. Their targets were a group of young men, armed and ready in their hideout in the al-Yasmina quarter of the Old City, but seemingly unaware of the danger that lurked around the corner.
They call themselves the “Lions’ Den”, Areen al-Usud in Arabic. A novel armed resistance group, relatively unknown outside of Nablus until a few months ago, the young fighters have gained hero-like status across Palestine.
In the streets of Nablus’ Old City, however, the lions are more than just mythical heroes. They are the brothers, sons, and friends of the people here. They are people’s neighbors — neighbors who watched them grow up, once kids buying snacks from the shop down the road, and causing a ruckus with the other neighborhood kids.
Now those cubs are lions, and they have taken it upon themselves to do something many believed to be impossible after decades under the boot of the Israeli occupation and its partners in the Palestinian Authority: reviving popular armed resistance.
The origin story
The emergence of the Lions’ Den into the Palestinian public consciousness can be traced back to the summer, when a stoic, narrow-faced and handsome young man cut through a crowd of thousands of people in the middle of the city of Nablus — his rifle in his right hand, the casket of his friend on his left.
As he marched through the crowd in the funeral procession for his fallen comrades, passersby saluted the young man. In a viral video, one man struggles to grab his hand, still wrapped tightly around his rifle, and kisses it. The young man’s face did not flinch.
شهيد يودع شهيد … الشهيد إبراهيم النابلسي في وداع رفيق دربه الشهيد ابو صالح قبل عدة ايام. pic.twitter.com/wQjA56HbxS
— Hisham Abu Shaqrah | هشام أبو شقرة (@HShaqrah) August 9, 2022
The young man was Ibrahim Nabulsi, just 18 years old at the time. Known locally as the “Lion of Nablus,” with a mysterious reputation as a fierce fighter who had managed to evade several arrest and assassination attempts by the Israelis, the young Nabulsi skyrocketed into popular fame and admiration after his showing at the funeral.
At the time, Nabulsi and his comrades were part of a group who called themselves the Nablus Brigades, Katibet Nablus in Arabic, operating out of the Old City. They had been active for months, conducting shooting operations across the northern West Bank.
Modeled after the Jenin Brigades to the north, the group was formed in early 2022, and was comprised primarily of young men formerly aligned with the Saraya Al-Quds (Al Quds Brigades), the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad movement.
But many of the group’s members and leaders hailed from different political factions. Nabulsi had formerly aligned himself with the Fatah movement; others had origins with Hamas, and even the leftist Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Like the Jenin Brigades, the Nablus Brigades were cross-factional, and while they had money coming in from various sources, they did not officially align themselves with one political party. They were fighting in the name of Palestine, and no one else.
The Israeli government’s first major operation targeting the Nablus Brigades happened in February, when Israeli special forces raided Nablus and ambushed a vehicle, showering it with bullets and extra-judicially assassinating three Palestinian resistance fighters which Israel claimed were wanted.
The three were Ashraf Mubaslat, Adham Mabrouka and Mohammad Dakhil. There was a fourth passenger — some reports said he was injured and arrested by the army, others said he managed to escape. Many speculated him to be Ibrahim al-Nabulsi.
At the time, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (the military wing of Fatah) claimed the three as its members. But they had recently broken off from Fatah, carrying out a number of shooting operations across Nablus in another name. Israeli defense officials were describing them as a “renegade” cell.
Around the same time, Israel’s military apparatus launched Operation Break the Wave, an open-ended massive operation across the occupied West Bank to “thwart terrorism activities,” and growing armed resistance in Jenin and Nablus.
In April, Israeli army chief of staff, Aviv Kochavi, warned: “Our mission is simple—we need to stop terrorism and to restore safety and a sense of security. We will do whatever it takes, whatever is necessary, for however long and wherever needed, until both safety and the sense of security are restored.”
Yet despite the increase of deadly Israeli military raids in Nablus and Jenin, the number of operations and armed resistance activities, whether through organized groups or independently, continued to rise. Rather than break the wave, Operation Break the Wave seemed only to be conjuring a tsunami.
At the end of July, months after Operation Break the Wave began, the Israeli army launched a massive raid on the al-Yasmina neighborhood in the Old City of Nablus. It was the first time since 2002 that the army was conducting a raid in the area, targeting who they said were Palestinians suspected of carrying out a shooting operation targeting Israeli soldiers and settlers as they raided Joseph’s Tomb a month before.
During the raid, resistance fighters fired heavily at Israeli forces, as they barricaded themselves inside the home of Mohammad al-Azizi, who is widely known to be the founder of the Lions’ Den. Israeli forces surrounded the home, bombarding it with explosives and gunfire, overpowering the fighters inside.
After a three-hour shootout, Mohammad al-Azizi, 25, and Aboud Suboh, 28, were killed in the raid, as they reportedly provided cover for their fellow comrades to escape. Israeli media reported that one of the primary targets of the raid, Ibrahim al-Nabulsi, had evaded capture once again.
While both al-Azizi and Suboh were claimed as members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, locally they were known to be some of the earliest members of the Nablus Brigades. It was at their funeral on July 24 that Nabulsi, donning a flak jacket and his rifle, paid tribute to his fallen comrades, further propelling his status as an icon in the city.
Across the West Bank, Palestinians circulated videos and photos of Nabulsi at the funeral. Suddenly, the Lion of Nablus and the group he fought with were becoming household names outside the bounds of their city.
It was only two weeks later that Nabulsi would meet the same fate as his fellow fighters. During a raid on the Old City on August 9, Nabulsi was killed while fighting the Israeli army. Two other members of the brigades who were fighting alongside Nabulsi were killed during the raid: Islam Sbuh, 32, and Hussein Jamal Taha, 16.
In a voice message shared widely on Palestinian social media, purportedly recorded by Nabulsi and sent to his comrades shortly before he was killed, a calm and collected Nabulsi can be heard saying:
“I love you so much. If I am martyred, guys, I love my mother. Take care of the homeland after I’m gone, and my final will to you, on your honor: don’t let go of the rifle — on your honor. I’m surrounded, and I am going towards my martyrdom.”
In his death, the Lion of Nablus was solidified as an icon, and the group he fought with became firmly implanted in the public consciousness. Following the killing of al-Nabulsi, the Den of Lions, now void of its founder and first fighters, began appealing to the public for protection.
LIONS’ DEN OFFICIAL TELEGRAM ACCOUNT PHOTO (PHOTO: TELEGRAM ACCOUNT OF AREEN AL-USUD)
Two weeks after the killing of Nabulsi, a new Telegram channel was created alongside a photo of Mohammad al-Azizi and Aboud Suboh holding up their rifles. Overlaid on top of the photograph was a new logo, reminiscent of the symbols used to represent the Fatah and Islamic Jihad armed wings. But this new symbol, showing the Dome of the Rock sitting underneath two crossed rifles, alongside an icon of an armed fighter in the middle of a map of Palestine, did not belong to any of the established political factions.
Plastered across a black banner was the name of the group in Arabic, underneath it a short line of text that read: “The official representative channel of the Lions’ Den.”
Gaining popularity
On September 2, in a memorial for al-Azizi and Suboh, the Lions’ Den made their first official appearance as a group in the Old City, drawing crowds of thousands. A militant from the group, clad in black military gear from head to toe, face covered in a black balaclava and sporting a black bucket hat, stood on the stage facing the throngs of people. Flanked by fighters with upraised weapons on either side, he read out the charter of the Lions’ Den.
“We salute those who have walked in the footsteps of al-Yasser and Yassin and Abu Ali Mustafa and Shikaki,” he said, referring, respectively, to the Fatah founder and late President, Yasser Arafat, the Hamas founder, Shaikh Ahmad Yassin, and the PFLP former Secretary General, Abu Ali Mustafa. “We have come here today, 40 days after the death of the Den’s lions, and in light of the burning revolution of our people in Jerusalem, in Gaza, in Jeningrad [Arafat’s Second Intifada-era stylization of Jenin after Stalingrad]…we have come to tell you that the spark began in the Old City [of Nablus] when our leader Abu Ammar formed the first cells of the revolution in the al-Yasmina neighborhood [during the Second Intifada].”
LIONS’ DEN LEADERS ADDRESS A MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR MOHAMMED AL-AZIZI AND ABOUD SUBOH IN THE WEST BANK CITY OF NABLUS ON SEPTEMBER 2, 2022. (PHOTO: SHADI JARAR’AH/APA IMAGES)
The charter went on to preach a message of independent resistance, free of the shackles of the old political factions. They vowed to continue to conduct operations across the West Bank targeting Israeli army positions and settlers. They addressed the PA security forces, who have a thorny history with armed groups in the Old City of Nablus, emphasizing that the group’s focus was confronting the Israeli occupation, not the PA.
In the following weeks, the group announced that it had conducted dozens of operations targeting Israeli army and settler positions across the West Bank, primarily in the Nablus area. On October 11, the den claimed responsibility for a shooting operation that left one Israeli soldier dead near the illegal Shave Shomron settlement in the Nablus district.
As the group stepped up their operations, the popularity of the Lions’ Den continued to soar. Over the course of two months, the group amassed hundreds of thousands of followers on platforms like Telegram, with their official channel boasting over 230,000 followers — more than any other Palestinian political faction. On TikTok, montages of the group’s fallen fighters cut together to the tune of the Lions’ Den anthem flooded fan accounts dedicated to the group.
While social media can often feel disconnected from the real world, the popularity of the Lions’ Den online was even more tangible in the streets than it is online.
In the alleyways of the al-Yasmina neighborhood, just one day after the October 25 raid that killed three members of the group, including senior fighter Wadee al-Hawah, young Palestinians from outside the city crowd the alleyways.
Some young folks eagerly ask shopkeepers where the home of the “hero martyr” Wadee al-Hawah is. A man points up to a crumbling facade of an old stone second-floor home. The youth ask if they can go up to the house, but they’re stopped by a group of stoic young men blocking the entrance at the door. So they pull out their phones instead, joining crowds of passersby taking photos of the home where the Lions’ Den leader was killed.
A few steps down the road, a woman salutes to a memorial for the slain fighter Tamer al-Kilani, who was assassinated on October 23 in the same spot where photos of him now lay, adorned with Palestinian flags. Another young mother tells her son to stand in front of the memorial to take a photo.
“Salute him, dear,” she says, as the young boy raises his right hand to his forehead.
Back down the road, outside the old radio repair shop, Jamal Hamou, 57, turns up the speakers blasting the Lions’ Den anthem. When asked what he thought of the group, he beat his fist to his chest, over his heart, a wide grin spreading across his face.
JAMAL HAMOU (PHOTO: AKRAM AL-WAARA/MONDOWEISS)
“The Lions’ Den, to the people of the Old City and outside of it, means everything to us,” he said. “These are our sons, our brothers, our boys. They have done something that so many before them tried and failed to do. They represent trustworthiness and honor, and they have made us proud, may God protect them, and bless those who have passed.”
Around the corner from Hamou’s shop, the famous Al-Aqsa Sweets, known across Palestine for its Nablus knafeh, is riddled with bullet holes. Usually packed to the brim with hungry customers, the shop is relatively empty. No one is in the mood for sweets, one of the owners tells Mondoweiss.
“I have worked here since I was five years old. I have lived here my whole life, I was here during the first and second Intifadas,” Basil al-Shantir, whose family owns the shop, told Mondoweiss. “What is happening right now is different. During the intifadas there was much more destruction on a larger scale, but what is happening now is not insignificant,” he said.
“The Lions’ Den is barely a few months old, but they have taken over the public consciousness in a way that is unprecedented.”
POSTER AT MEMORIAL FOR WADEE AL-HAWAH, MASHAAL BAGHDADI, HAMDI QAIM, ALI ANTAR, AND HAMDI SHARAF (PHOTO: AKRAM AL-WAARA/MONDOWEISS)
Israel threatened
A few kilometers outside of the Old City, the day after the deadly raid on the Old City, thousands of Palestinians gathered at the memorial for the “moons of Nablus,” the five Palestinians who were killed.
It was a typical scene for a martyr’s memorial, held for three days after someone is killed by the occupation. Posters of Wadee al-Hawah, Mashaal Baghdadi, Hamdi Qaim, Ali Antar, and Hamdi Sharaf lined the entrance and walls of the local community center where the wake was being held. Family members of the deceased lined up at the door, greeting mourners who had come to pay their respects.
But this memorial was different in one small, but distinguishable regard. It was largely devoid of any symbols marking the political affiliation of the martyrs, a typical feature at the funerals of Palestinian martyrs.
Inside, Mazen Dunbuk, 40, a spokesperson for the Fatah movement in Nablus’ Old City, sat down for lunch, customarily served in honor of the martyrs.
“Young people are thirsty for resistance, for armed resistance, and for a change of the status quo of the past 20 years. And this is what Israel is scared of.”
Mazen Dunbuk
“The funeral of the five martyrs was one of the biggest seen in Palestine in years,” he said. “This is a sign to the [Israeli] occupation, and to the Palestinian leaders, that the public support for these young men is huge,” Dunbuk told Mondoweiss.
Aware of the reputation his political party holds, as the majority part of the increasingly unpopular PA government, Dunbuk said matter-of-factly: “We know that people are tired of the different political factions, they want a united resistance. Nothing is more evident of that than the popularity of the Lions’ Den,” he said.
“Young people are thirsty for resistance, for armed resistance, and for a change of the status quo of the past 20 years,” he said. “And this is what Israel is scared of.”
The threat that the group poses to Israel was evident in the military apparatus’ focus on destroying the group at all costs. In the wake of the October 11 operation that killed one Israeli soldier, the army enforced a more than two-week closure of the entire Nablus district, affecting the lives of more than 400,000 Palestinians.
In the span of just a few days in the last week of October, the army conducted several raids and operations targeting members of the Lions’ Den and their areas of operation. In addition to the targeted assassinations of Tamer al-Kilani and Wadee al-Hawah, several members of the group or those affiliated with them were arrested, including the brother of Ibrahim al-Nabulsi.
The return of Israel’s use of targeted assassinations against resistance members evoked more memories of the first and second intifada, indicating to locals that the army was ramping up its operations to quash the group.
But while the army has snuffed out the lives of several of the Lions’ Den’s leaders and senior members, what it has so far failed to do is squash the influence that the group has wielded over Palestinians, primarily young people, across the West Bank who have been inspired by their messages of independent resistance, unaffiliated with the political parties of yesterday.
And for Israel, that is where the group’s most dangerous aspect lies.
In terms of actual casualties, the Lions’ Den itself has not claimed a significant number of deaths or injuries of Israeli settlers or soldiers. Most of its operations targeting Israeli positions across the West Bank have resulted in some injuries, though not always.
Yet the group’s influence has inspired more “lone-wolf” operations across the West Bank that have proved destructive for Israel. In the nine days since the Israeli military assault on Nablus that killed al-Hawah, at least six operations were carried out across the West Bank by individual Palestinians not officially affiliated with the Lions’ Den or other armed groups.
In the operations, which targeted both settlers and Israeli military positions, several soldiers were wounded, and even one settler was killed. And most notably, Udai al-Tamimi, a young man from Shu’fat refugee camp, killed an Israeli soldier stationed at the Shu’fat military checkpoint in a drive-by lone wolf shooting, and the massive manhunt that ensued lasted for ten days and put the entire camp under siege, before Tamimi himself came out of hiding and attacked and injured Israeli guards stationed outside the illegal settlement of Ma’ale Adumim — notably far away from where the manhunt’s efforts were focused — before he was shot and killed by the guards.
Separate from the armed operations seemingly inspired by the group, the Lions’ Den has forgone the traditional model of hosting dressed-up press conferences or issuing curated public statements that are filtered through standard media outlets and rendered into soundbites, carving out instead a mode of communication with the broader Palestinian community, using public platforms like Telegram to speak directly to Palestinians, always signing off “your brothers in the Lions’ Den.”
On October 16, almost a week after Israel closed off the city of Nablus, the Lions’ Den appealed to Palestinians for a night of disruption, inviting people from across the West Bank to shout from their rooftops and make noise in the streets in response to reports in the Israeli media about army promises to “finish off” the armed group “from the root.”
“To all citizens, to our fathers, mothers, siblings, and children,” the statement read. “Come out tonight on the rooftops at exactly 12:30 a.m. Let us hear your cheers of Allahu Akbar [God is Great]. We want the last sound we hear to be your voices,” the group wrote.
And Palestinians responded to the call: from Nablus, and extending to Ramallah, Tulkarem, Hebron, and Jerusalem.
On the same day, the Lions’ Den released a statement, reaffirming that the group did not belong to any political party, and had “turned its back on all disputes and rivalries.
“The fact that they are independent is drawing more youth in, and Israel knows that the danger of the group lies in their political independence,” Basel al-Shantir told Mondoweiss outside his knafeh shop in the Old City. “Because when you do not belong to an official party, you cannot be pressured or blackmailed into bad deals and watered-down agreements.”
Back at the memorial for the five martyrs killed on the 25th, a young man sits solemnly in the corner of a quiet room. He identifies himself as a member of the Lions’ Den.
“Wadee and the others have done something, they’ve created something that the Palestinian political factions have been unsuccessful in doing for decades,” the young man, who requested anonymity, told Mondoweiss.
“They brought people together, to create one united resistance, without political factions,” the young man continued. “Entire nations have tried to do this and failed.”
When asked why he and other young men were inspired to take up arms, he said: “we are under occupation, and this occupation is killing us everyday. Wadee and the others woke up every day to news of more martyrs, more settler attacks, and more of our homeland being stolen.”
“When we fight we are demanding our dignity, something our own government has failed to do for 30 years.”
The role of the PA
On the night of October 26, shortly after the first day of the memorial for the five martyrs in Nablus came to a close, news broke that four members of the Lions’ Den had turned themselves over the Palestinian Authority Security Forces (PASF).
One of the men, Mahmoud al-Bana, a top commander in the Lions’ Den who was injured in the raid the night before, wrote a statement on Facebook, addressing the Palestinian people about his decision to hand himself into the PA.
“My comrades were martyred by my side, and I was wounded with them several times, and my martyrdom was declared more than once,” al-Bana wrote. “By God’s power and kindness, I am alive today.”
“Today, after consulting with my brothers in the struggle, myself and my comrades-in-arms, it was agreed with our brothers in the [Palestinian] security services to surrender ourselves in order to protect us from this brutal occupier,” he said.
As controversy erupted across Palestinian social media over the fighters’ decision to turn themselves in, the Lions’ Den released an official statement, saying that “whoever surrenders himself, this is their decision and choice.”
In another statement the next day, the group said that those who believed the Lions’ Den was disbanding were “living under an illusion.”
But the impact of the fighters’ decisions to hand themselves over to the PA could not be denied, as the streets and the internet buzzed with talk of the future of the Lions’ Den. Would the group survive the next inevitable Israeli attack? Or would there even be a Lions’ Den to fight by that point?
One certainty remained clear: the Israeli government were not the only ones that wanted the Lions’ Den off the streets, and out of the Palestinian public consciousness for good.
In late September, as the Lions’ Den continued to gain popularity in the West Bank and steadily upped their operations, PA security forces raided the city of Nablus in order to arrest two Lions’ Den fighters who were wanted by Israel, Musaab Shtayyeh, 30, and Ameed Tbeileh, 21.
One Palestinian, 55-year-old Firas Yaish, was killed, while several others were injured. The raid sparked fierce confrontations and widespread backlash, as Palestinians criticized the PA’s ongoing security coordination with Israel, and what they viewed as their own government’s attempts to quash Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation.
“For us it’s the battleground, and for them the diplomacy,” a young 20-year-old fighter told Mondoweiss on the evening of September 20, as PA forces clashed with local youth in the city the day after the arrest of Shtayyeh and Tbeileh.
After the September 19 raid and the subsequent public backlash, the PA stayed relatively silent on the subject of the Lions’ Den, opting instead for a policy of quiet neutralization, working behind the scenes to offer fighters of the Lions’ Den amnesty in the ranks of the PASF in exchange for putting down their weapons, and agreeing to serve time in PA prisons.
Similar to the deals struck with former fighters with the armed wing of Fatah after the Second Intifada, the PA was offering these young men safety — safety from the inevitable: imprisonment, or more likely, death, at the hands of the Israelis. And as the Israeli military upped its attacks on the group through targeted assassinations and large-scale raids, the PA’s proposition became even more appealing.
On October 31, a week after al-Bana and three others handed themselves over to the PA, another senior fighter in the Lions’ Den, Mohammad Tabanja, reportedly followed suit. A source within the PA told Mondoweiss that at least a dozen members of the Lions’ Den had already turned themselves over to the PASF. Mondoweiss could not independently confirm that number.
Three days later, in the heart of the Old City, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh held a press conference, surrounded by dozens of journalists and foreign diplomats — a sight the Old City had not witnessed in months.
Shtayyeh’s statements largely addressed Israel’s ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territory, criticizing the “collective punishment” policies imposed on the Palestinian people. While Shtayyeh made no mention of the Lions’ Den or of armed resistance, a second message was clear from his appearance in the Old City: the PA had restored “order” and control to the city, at least on the surface.
PALESTINIAN PRIME MINISTER MOHAMMED SHTAYYEH VISITS NABLUS ON NOVEMBER 3, 2022. (PHOTO: SHADI HATEM/APA IMAGES)
As the future of the Lions’ Den hangs in the balance, so does the trajectory of the current Palestinian mobilization. The current moment is defined largely by such groups and the influence they wield, inspiring others to take up arms against the occupation. So it is without a doubt that the future of the group will affect the outcome of the current moment, as well as whether the wave of armed resistance we are witnessing will continue to swell, or slowly subside and fade into the distance.
On November 1, the same day the most right-wing, extremist government in Israeli history was elected into power, the Lions’ Den released their most recent statement.
“The most important thing is to you, and everyone who believes that our fire has subsided: a volcano is brewing.
For those who call for peace, look at their elections and you will see their choices.
As for the resistance fighters from the Lions’ Den, or from the blessed factions, or our lone wolves — strike them everywhere. What kind of life is this, that we live in peace with those who abuse our blood and the blood of our children, men, and sisters?
Your brothers, the Lions’ Den.”
Mariam Barghouti is the Senior Palestine Correspondent for Mondoweiss.
Yumna Patel is the Palestine News Director for Mondoweiss.
وسائل إعلام إسرائيلية تتحدّث عن “عملية طعن معقدة تمّت في ساحتين مختلفتين” في مستوطنة “أريئيل”، وتفيد بمقتل مستوطنين وإصابة نحو 8.
“عملية معقدة” في مستوطنة “أريئيل” توقع عدداً من الإصابات
أفادت وسائل إعلام إسرائيلية، اليوم الثلاثاء، بمقتل مستوطنين وإصابة 8 آخرين في عـملية طعن ودهس في المنطقة الصناعية في مستوطنة “أريئيل” في الضفة الغربية.
ولفت الإعلام الإسرائيلي إلى إصابة “8 مستوطنين في عملية الطعن في أريئيل؛ 2 في حال حرجة، و3 في حال خطرة، و3 إصابتهم طفيفة”.
وفي تفاصيل العملية، أفاد الإعلام الإسرائيلي بأنّ “منفذ العملية طعن مستوطناً عند مدخل المنطقة الصناعية في مستوطنة أريئيل، ثم طعن 3 إسرائيليين في محطة للوقود قرب المستوطنة. بعد ذلك، انتقل بواسطة سيارة أخذها من أحد المستوطنين، وسار بعكس السير، ما أدّى إلى حادث سير بين عدد من السيارات”.
وأشار الإعلام الإسرائيلي إلى أنّ “عملية الطعن حصلت في وقت كانت حال التأهب في صفوف قوات الأمن الإسرائيلية في ذروتها”، لافتاً إلى أنّها “عملية معقدة، إذ تمت في ساحتين مختلفتين، ولم يكن هناك إنذار مسبق”.
وأفاد مراسل الميادين بأنّ قوات الاحتلال أطلقت النار على منفذ العملية، ما أدى إلى استشهاده.
وفي السياق نفسه، قال الناطق باسم حركة “حماس” عبد اللطيف القانوع إنّ “عملية الطعن البطولية في مستوطنة ما يسمى أريئيل تبرهن قدرة شعبنا على استمرار ثورته ودفاعه عن المسجد الأقصى من الاقتحامات اليومية”.
وأضاف القانوع: “العدوان المتواصل على شعبنا واقتحام الأقصى اليومي سيُقابل بتوسيع ضربات المقاومة وتمددها لردع الاحتلال ووقفه عند حده”.
بدوره، قال الناطق باسم حركة الجهاد الإسلامي، طارق عز الدين، إنّ “هذه العملية الفدائية داخل مغتصبة أريئيل تؤكّد مرة أخرى هشاشة هذا الاحتلال المجرم وتحطم منظومته الأمنية والعسكرية التي تفتك بأبناء الشعب الفلسطيني كل يوم”.
وتابع عز الدين: “هذه العملية البطولية اليوم هي رد شعبنا على مواقف وتهديدات قادة اليمين الصهيوني الذين يتبجحون بفوزهم في انتخاباتهم المزعومة”.
الجبهة الديمقراطية لتحرير فلسطين، من جهتها، شدّدت عقب حدوث العملية على أنّ “المقاومة بكل أشكالها مستمرة وستتصاعد، ولن يستطيع الاحتلال إخماد نارها المشتعلة في كل مكان”.
وأشادت الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين بعملية الطعن البطوليّة في مستوطنة “أرائيل”، مشيرةً إلى أنّها “رسالة جديدة تؤكّد إصرار الشعب الفلسطيني على استمرار مقاومته الاحتلال حتى دحره ونيل حقوقه الوطنيّة”.
أمّا حركة المجاهدين الفلسطينية، فأشارت إلى أنّ “هذه العملية البطولية تؤكّد صواب نهج مواجهة هذا المحتل المجرم حتى كنسه عن كل الأراضي الفلسطينية المحتلة واسترداد كل الحقوق الوطنية المسلوبة”.
في سياق آخر، شنّت قوات الاحتلال، اليوم الثلاثاء، حملة اعتقالات واسعة في صفوف المواطنين في مناطق متفرقة من الضفة الغربية والقدس المحتلة، فيما داهمت قوات الاحتلال منزل الأسير يونس هيلان من قلقيلية.
وتزعم سلطات الاحتلال قيام الأسير هيلان بقتل مستوطن طعناً قبل شهر في بلدة الفندق قضاء قلقيلية.
The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine organized a rally in Gaza in support of Palestinian resistance in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem.
A member of the Political Bureau of the Democratic Front in the Gaza Strip, Saleh Nasser, affirmed that the Palestinian people chose the path of resistance in all its forms against the Israeli occupation.
“Our people are subjected to collective punishments, abuse, cold-blooded executions, arrests and demolition of homes in all cities of the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip,” Nasser said.
“This is an open war that escalates daily in the worst forms of persecution and fascist racism, as well as in the implementation of policies aimed at the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population, in flagrant violation of international and humanitarian law.”
Meanwhile, organized by the PFLP, a symbolic funeral was held in Gaza on Monday to mourn Tamer Kilani, one of the leaders of the Nablus-based resistance group Lions’ Den.
Thousands participated in the funeral, which was organized by the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, the armed wing of the PFLP.
Another influential member of the Political Bureau of the PFLP in Gaza, Mahmoud al-Ras, said that organizing the funeral in Gaza “is a confirmation that we are one people and that our destiny is one.”
Al-Ras stressed that “the path of resistance is a path towards unity against the occupation.”
Tamer Kilani was killed on Sunday when an explosive device exploded in the Old City of Nablus.
The following day, five other Palestinians, including top Lions’ Den commander Wadee Al Hawah, were also killed in Nablus, and a sixth Palestinian in Ramallah.
(All Photos: Mahmoud Ajjour, The Palestine Chronicle)
بعد اغتيال أحد عناصر مجموعة “عرين الأسود” الفلسطينية فجر اليوم، الأخيرة تتوعد الاحتلال الإسرائيلي بـ”حدثٍ أمني قد اقترب”.
“عرين الأسود” للاحتلال: ترقبوا.. إنا أمسينا بركاناً من غضب
أكدت مجموعة “عرين الأسود” الفلسطينية أنها تعدّ “حدثاً من لهب” للاحتلال الإسرائيلي، محذرةً من “حدثٍ أمني قد اقترب”.
وقالت المجموعة في بيانٍ إنّ “بنادق العرين عطشى كصحراء النقب فترقبوا إنا أمسينا بركاناً من غضب”، مضيفةً: “من فوق الأرض من تحت الأرض تابعونا فإنا نعدُّ لكم حدثاً من لهب”.
عرين الأسود: بنادق العرين عطشى كصحراء النقب فترقبوا إنا أمسينا بركاناً من غضب من فوق الأرض من تحت الأرض تابعونا فإنا نعدُّ لكم حدثاً من لهب حاصروا كل مكان الآن وأطلقوا لطائراتكم عيونكم أعوانكم العنان فويل ثم ويل ثم ويل من حدثٍ أمنيٍ قد إقترب وويل لكم عندما يغرّد العرين
وفي السياق، تحدثت وسائل إعلام إسرائيلية اليوم عن حالة تأهب قصوى في القدس في أعقاب معلومات استخبارية محددة.
ويأتي ذلك بعد إعلان مجموعة “عرين الأسود”، فجر اليوم، استشهاد أحد عناصرها، تامر الكيلاني (33 عاماً)، الذي ارتقى في إثر انفجار عبوة ناسفة لُصقت بدراجته الخاصة.
ونعت “عرين الأسود” الشهيد الكيلاني، واصفةً إياه بأنّه من “أشرس مقاتلي المجموعة”، موضحةً أنّه استشهد بانفجار عبوة “تي أن تي” لاصقة.
والشهيد الكيلاني يبلغ من العمر 33 عاماً، من سكان حي جبل فطاير في نابلس، وهو متزوج وأب لطفلين. وأمضى الكيلاني 8 سنوات في سجون الاحتلال، بتهمة الانتماء للذراع العسكرية للجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين.
و“عرين الأسود” هي مجموعات تضم أفراداً من مختلف الفصائل الفلسطينية في نابلس وجنين، شمالي الضفة الغربية.
وقبل أيام، دعت مجموعة “عرين الأسود” الفلسطينيين إلى “التصدّي لمسيرات المستوطنين في الضفة الغربية، والاشتباك المباشر معهم”.
تبادَل مسؤولو الحركة والمسؤولون السوريون، خلال لقاءات دورية جمعتْهم، ملاحظات حول فترة القطيعة وما سبقها (أ ف ب)
أخيراً، وبشكل رسمي، وبعد صدور العديد من المؤشّرات المتلاحقة والمتسارعة في هذا الاتّجاه، أعلنت حركة «حماس» قرارها العودة إلى سوريا، مؤكدةً العمل على ترجمته لإنهاء سنوات طويلة من القطيعة مع دمشق، التي «احتضنت شعبنا الفلسطيني وفصائله المقاوِمة لعقود من الزمن»، كما قالت الحركة. ويأتي بيان الأمس ليُتوّج، بحسب معلومات «الأخبار»، سلسلة من اللقاءات التي جرت بين مسؤولي «حماس» والمسؤولين السوريين، وتخلّلتها مراجعات للفترة السابقة، وتبادل ملاحظات حول الملفّات التي «تجب معالجتها بشكل جدّي»، ليصل العمل حالياً إلى مرحلة «بناء الثقة»، تمهيداً للتطبيع الشامل والواسع
غزة | كما كان متوقّعاً بعد سلسلة لقاءات ومباحثات رعاها «حزب الله»، أصدرت حركة «حماس»، أمس، بياناً أعلنت فيه وقوفها إلى جانب سوريا في وجه «المخطّطات الهادفة إلى تقسيمها»، مؤكّدة سعيها لترجمة قرارها باستعادة علاقاتها مع دمشق. وبحسب ما علمته «الأخبار» من مصادر «حمساوية»، فإن البيان يأتي في ضوء استمرار اشتغال الحركة على تطبيع هذه العلاقات بعد سنوات من القطيعة، و«مواجهة العقبات التي تحاول أطراف خارجية وضعها في طريق تسوية جميع الخلافات مع السوريين». وكشفت المصادر أن مباحثات عدّة انطلقت بعد معركة «سيف القدس» بين «حماس» والقيادة السورية، برعاية من الأمين العام لـ«حزب الله» السيد حسن نصرالله، حيث تمّ كسر الجمود كخطوة أولى، بينما وصل العمل في الفترة الأخيرة إلى مرحلة «بناء الثقة تمهيداً لاستعادة العلاقة بشكل أكبر وأوسع». وتبادَل مسؤولو الحركة والمسؤولون السوريون، خلال لقاءات دورية جمعتْهم، ملاحظات حول فترة القطيعة وما سبقها، والملفّات التي «تجب معالجتها بشكل جدّي لإنهاء الخلاف»، مع إبداء ملاحظات حول كيفية تجاوُز المسبّبات الخارجية والداخلية التي أعاقت التطبيع سابقاً. وأكدت المصادر أن هذا المسار سيتسارع خلال الفترة المقبلة، «في ضوء المتغيّرات والتحدّيات الإقليمية والدولية التي تُواجه محور المقاومة ككلّ، في ظلّ تَشكّل تحالف التطبيع بين الدول العربية ودولة الاحتلال برعاية أميركية، بما يشكّل تهديداً للمحور وأطرافه».
وأعلنت حركة «حماس»، في بيان أمس، بعنوان «أمّة واحدة في مواجهة الاحتلال والعدوان»، مُضيّها في «بناء وتطوير علاقات راسخة مع الجمهورية العربية السورية، في إطار قرارها باستئناف علاقتها مع سوريا الشقيقة، خدمةً لأمّتنا وقضاياها العادلة، وفي القلْب منها قضية فلسطين، ولا سيّما في ظلّ التطوّرات الإقليمية والدولية المتسارعة التي تحيط بقضيتنا وأمّتنا»، مُجدّدةً تمسّكها بـ«استراتيجيتها الثابتة، وحرصها على تطوير وتعزيز علاقاتها مع أمّتها ومحيطها العربي والإسلامي، وكلّ الداعمين لقضيتنا ومقاومتنا». ودانت الحركة «بشدّة، العدوان الصهيوني المتكرّر على سوريا، وخاصة قصف مطارَيْ دمشق وحلب أخيراً»، مؤكدةً «وقوفنا إلى جانب سوريا في مواجهة هذا العدوان». وأعربت عن تقديرها «للجمهورية العربية السورية قيادةً وشعباً، لدورها في الوقوف إلى جانب الشعب الفلسطيني وقضيته العادلة»، متطلّعةً إلى أن «تستعيد سوريا دورها ومكانتها في الأمّتَين العربية والإسلامية»، مبديةً دعمها لـ«كلّ الجهود المخلصة من أجل استقرار وسلامة سوريا، وازدهارها وتقدّمها». وإذ كرّرت «موقفنا الثابت من وحدة سوريا أرضاً وشعباً»، و«رفضنا أيّ مساس بذلك»، فقد جزمت «(أننا) ننحاز إلى أمّتنا في مواجهة المخطّطات الصهيونية الخبيثة، الهادفة إلى تجزئتها وتقسيمها ونهب خيراتها، ونقف صفاً واحداً وطنياً وعربياً وإسلامياً لمقاومة العدو الصهيوني، والتصدّي لمخطّطاته». كما دعت إلى «إنهاء جميع مظاهر الصراع في الأمة، وتحقيق المصالحات والتفاهمات بين مكوّناتها ودُولها وقواها عبر الحوار الجادّ، بما يحقّق مصالح الأمّة ويخدم قضاياها». ولفتت إلى «التطوّرات الخطيرة التي تمسّ بشعبنا الفلسطيني وقضيّته العادلة، وأبرزها مظاهر التطبيع ومحاولات دمج العدو الصهيوني ليكون جزءاً من المنطقة، مع ما يرافق ذلك من جهود للسيطرة على موارد المنطقة، ونهب خيراتها، وزرع الفتن والاحتراب بين شعوبها ودولها، واستهداف قواها الفاعِلة والمؤثّرة، الرافضة والمقاوِمة للمشروع الصهيوني»، مشيرةً في هذا السياق إلى «استمرار العدوان الصهيوني على سوريا الشقيقة، بالقصف والقتل والتدمير، وتصاعُد محاولات النيل منها وتقسيمها وتجزئتها، وإبعادها عن دورها التاريخي الفاعل، ولا سيما على صعيد القضية الفلسطينية»، مُذكّرةً بأن «سوريا احتضنت شعبنا الفلسطيني وفصائله المقاوِمة لعقود من الزمن، وهو ما يستوجب الوقوف معها، في ظلّ ما تتعرّض له من عدوان غاشم». وكان نائب رئيس حركة «حماس» في قطاع غزة، خليل الحية، أكد، في حديث إلى «الأخبار» أواخر حزيران الماضي، أن ثمّة قراراً اتُّخذ بـ«السعي إلى استعادة العلاقة مع دمشق»، بعد «نقاش داخلي وخارجي على مستوى الحركة شارك فيه قياديون وكوادر ومؤثّرون وحتى معتقلون داخل السجون». وأوضح الحية أنه «تمّت مناقشة الظروف والتوقيت والشكل»، كما «تمّ وضْع خطّة سيتمّ تنفيذها بمساعدة الحلفاء»، مضيفاً أن «هناك تَوجّهاً نحو البيئة الأوسع، التي تشمل أصحاب الرأي والمفكّرين والعلماء، ومن ثمّ الأطر الشعبية الأوسع»، متابعاً «(أننا) وضعنا تركيا وقطر في أجواء تَوجّهنا هذا، وهما لا تُعارضانه». وسبق كلامَ الحيّة بأسبوع، حديثٌ مشابه نقلته وكالة «فرانس برس» عن مسؤول رفيع المستوى في «حماس»، جاء فيه أن «الاتّصالات مع سوريا في تَحسّن، والعلاقات في طريق عودتها بالكامل إلى ما كانت عليه»، وأن «زيارات عدّة قام بها قادة الحركة إلى سوريا». وإلى جانب تلك التصريحات، أعلن الأمين العام لـ«حزب الله»، غير مرّة، في أحاديث صحافية، اهتمامه «بشكل شخصي» بتسوية العلاقة بين «حماس» وسوريا، مؤكداً أن الأخيرة منفتِحة على هذا المسار الذي وصفه بـ«الإيجابي».
«حماس»: سوريا احتضنت شعبنا الفلسطيني وفصائله المقاوِمة لعقود من الزمن
يُذكر أن مصدراً قيادياً في «حماس» أكّد لـ«الأخبار»، بالتوازي مع انتهاء معركة «سيف القدس» في أيار 2021، أن لدى الحركة قراراً مسبقاً ببحْث عودتها إلى الأراضي السورية عندما تحين الفرصة المناسبة، «وفي ضوء الرسائل الإيجابية التي نقلها لنا عدد من قادة فصائل المقاومة في سوريا عقب لقائهم الأخير بالرئيس بشار الأسد، وترحيبه بجميع الفصائل من دون استثناء، وتوجيهه التحيّة إلى حماس»، فإن هذا القرار سيتعزّز. وأشار المصدر، آنذاك، إلى أن الحركة ستبدأ مشاورات مع «حزب الله» وإيران خلال الفترة القريبة، بهدف جسّ نبض السوريين حول عودة العلاقة معهم، متوقّعاً أن تكون الردود السورية إيجابية، ومن دون شروط مسبقة، الأمر الذي سيفتح الباب أمام التطبيع، كخطوة أولى تتبعها عودة قيادات «حمساوية» إلى الأراضي السورية في وقت لاحق. ولم يُخفِ المصدر، في ذلك الوقت، وجود محاولات سابقة من قِبَل أطراف في محور المقاومة لترميم العلاقة بين الحركة والسوريين، غير أن تلك المحاولات اعتراها عدد من العقبات، آملاً أن يكون الانتصار الذي حقّقته المقاومة في غزة خلال معركة «سيف القدس» بوّابة لإزالة العقبات المذكورة، في ظلّ الاتفاق على برنامج المقاومة ومواجهة الاحتلال الإسرائيلي، وتمسّك «حماس» بمبدأ عدم التدخّل في الشؤون الداخلية للدول العربية، وتعزيز العلاقات معها بهدف تجميع طاقات الأمة لدعم المقاومة.
مسؤول العلاقات الدولية في الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين
في ذكرى استشهاده الحادية والعشرين نتذكر بكل فخر واعتزاز وشموخ قائداً ومقاتلاً فلسطينياً وعربياً، كان ولا زال وستبقى ذكراه ومأثره في عقولنا وقلوبنا، رجلاً من أصدق الرجال وأغلى الرجال وأشجع الرجال الفارس أبو علي مصطفى الأمين العام السابق للجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين، الذي اغتالته يد الغدر بقرار من المجرم شارون الذي اتخذ قراراً في المجلس الوزاري المصغر في الكيان الاسرائيلي للتخلص من الخطر الذي يمثله هذا القائد الذي يجسد نموذجاً للإخلاص والعطاء والتضحية والشجاعة والتحدي.
ففي يوم لا ينسى السابع والعشرين من اب عام 2001 وعلى أرض فلسطين المقاومة قصفت الطائرات الإسرائيلية مقر عمله في رام الله وارتقى بكل عنفوان شهيداً ليلتقي ب غسان كنفاني ووديع حداد وجيفارا غزة وخالد ابو عيشة وأبو أمل وخليل الوزير وكل الشهداء.
عرفته الجماهير الفلسطينية والعربية على امتداد نصف قرن مقاتلاً صلباً عنيداً لا ينكسر ولا يتراجع أمام التحديات والمصاعب والمحن.
كان لقائي الاول مع أبو علي مصطفى عام 1972 في بيروت وكان نائباً للأمين العام الدكتور جورج حبش وكان عمره 34 عاما وعمري 19 عاما، وفي هذا اللقاء حيث كنا نحضر اجتماعاً للجنة المركزية العامة للجبهة، كان الحديث سريعاً عن المقاومة وعلى الوضع في لبنان ووضع الثورة الفلسطينية بعد الخروج من الأردن. وشعرت أنني أمام إنسان يدخل إلى القلب بسرعة متواضع إلى أبعد الحدود ويمتلك كاريزما قيادية تترك أثراً عميقاً لمن يلتقيه لأول مرة وشعرت بالإعجاب والتقدير لهذا الانسان منذ اللقاء الأول.
بعد الاجتياح الاسرائيلي للبنان عام 1982 انتقل المركز القيادي للجبهة من بيروت الى دمشق وتسلمت مسؤولية جديدة كأمين سر للمكتب السياسي للجبهة وفي تلك المرحلة منذ أن تسلمت هذه المسؤولية أصبحت على صلة يومية مع الأمين العام الدكتور جورج حبش ونائب الأمين العام أبو علي مصطفى حيث كنا نعمل في مكتب واحد وأستطيع القول انني تعرفت على أبو علي بشكل وثيق عبر سنوات طويلة تشكلت خلالها علاقة صداقة وليس علاقة عمل فقط. وعرفت هذا الانسان وهذه القامة الوطنية الكبيرة ومكونات شخصيته الفذة.
أستطيع القول ان أبا علي انسان منظم في عمله إلى أبعد الحدود بسيط ويعمل ساعات طويلة قبل الظهر وبعد الظهر وكان أول من يحضر إلى العمل وآخر من يغادر ولا يتعامل مع رفاقه إلا بكل محبة وتواضع ويشعر الرفاق العاملين معه أننا أسرة وعائلة واحدة في إدارة العمل، يحمل درجة عالية من الدفء بعلاقته مع رفاقه، الأمر الذي يجعل كل الرفاق يعملون بحماس وقناعة ورغبة شديدة في إنجاز المهمات وليس مجرد تنفيذ واجبات ومهام بشكل روتيني، إنما كفريق عمل وأسرة مناضلة تعمل من أجل تحقيق مبادئ وأهداف سامية.
وفي الوقت الذي كان يتمتع فيه بأعلى درجات التواضع والبساطة فقد كان حازماً ومتابعاً للعمل بأعلى درجات الجدية والحرص على إنجاز المهام في أوقاتها المحددة وكان يتمتع بمناقبية عالية ويرفض أية امتيازات، زاهداً لا تغريه مظاهر الحياة، بسيطاً في طعامه ولباسه وأتذكر عندما أصبح أميناً عاماً للجبهة بعد التنحي الطوعي للقائد المؤسس المناضل العربي الكبير الدكتور جورج حبش، اتصل معنا معد برنامج بلا حدود في قناة الجزيرة السيد أحمد منصور طالباً إجراء حوار في الدوحة مع أبو علي مصطفى بعد تسلم موقعه كأمين عام وفي البداية حاول الاعتذار عن اللقاء لكن تم إقناعه بضرورة إجراء هذا الحوار لكي يطل بمهامه الجديدة على الشعب الفلسطيني ويطرح رؤيته وأفكاره واقتنع بالذهاب ولكنه طلب ان أرافقه في هذه الزيارة وسافرنا معاً وقبل السفر بيوم اتصلت به وقلت له نريد أن نأخذ مبلغ من المال كسلفة عمل في رحلتنا فقال لي إذا كانت التذاكر والاقامة على حساب قناه الجزيرة اطلب من المالية سلفة 50 دولار لكنني قلت له أن هذا المبلغ غير كافي وأخذنا سلفة 100 دولار.
عند استشهاده كنا في اجتماع للمكتب السياسي في حلقة الخارج و فوجئنا بأحد الرفاق يدخل بشكل مفاجئ ويقول أن هناك خبراً تناقلته وكالات الانباء بأن طائرات إسرائيلية اغتالت أبو علي مصطفى، شعرنا بصدمة شديدة وأوقفنا الاجتماع وخرجنا من الغرفة واتصلنا مع رفاقنا داخل الوطن وتأكدنا من صحة الخبر المؤلم، انتابنا مشاعر حزن عميق وكانت مفاجأة وصدمة شديدة، لم يكن قائدنا فقط وإنما كان بالنسبة لنا الصديق والاخ والرفيق الذي عملنا معه سنوات طويلة حافلة بالأحداث والذكريات وبدأت تنهال علينا الاتصالات من سوريا ولبنان والاردن وفلسطين والعديد من بلدان العالم شعرنا بحزن عميق وشديد وبنفس الوقت مشاعر غضب وتحدِ باننا يجب ان نرد ونثأر لشهيدنا الكبير ولكل شهداء شعبنا.
وفعلا جاء الرد مدوياً من رفاقنا الابطال على ارض الوطن وقبل مرور أربعين يوما تم الرد بتصفية وزير السياحة الصهيوني المتطرف رحبعام زئيفي.
لا شك أن القرار الاسرائيلي وعلى أعلى مستوى باغتيال أبو علي مصطفى كان ناجماً عن متابعة ورصد دقيق للدور الكبير الذي يلعبه هذا القائد الاستثنائي على أرض فلسطين بعد عودته إلى الوطن سواء دوره على المستوى الداخلي في تصليب أوضاع الجبهة الشعبية والبناء التنظيمي والكفاحي، أو على المستوى الوطني ضمن إطار فصائل الثورة الفلسطينية، ولذلك أدرك الكيان الاسرائيلي أهمية وخطورة الدور الذي يمكن أن يلعبه هذا القائد الكبير فتم اتخاذ القرار وأعلن شارون مباشرة بعد عملية الاغتيال بأنه تم التخلص من شخصية خطيرة.
خرجت الجماهير الفلسطينية في الأراضي المحتلة عام 1948 وفي الضفة والقطاع و القدس وسوريا ولبنان والاردن وكل مواقع اللجوء والشتات والمنافي البعيدة بمسيرات وتشييع رمزي وإقامة مجالس عزاء لهذه القامة الوطنية والقومية العربية الكبيرة لأنها كانت تدرك حجم الخسارة التي أصابت الشعب الفلسطيني وأحرار العالم.
لقد توهم الكيان الصهيوني أنه باغتيال الشهيد أبو علي سوف يتم إضعاف الجبهة الشعبية وتحجيم دورها، ولا شك ان استشهاد هذا الرمز الكفاحي الكبير قد شكل ضربة مؤلمة وموجعة للجبهة الشعبية ولكن هذه الضربة لم تُضِعف الجبهة الشعبية بل زادتها قوة وإصرار على مواصلة الكفاح والمقاومة وهذا ما أكدته مسيرة السنوات العشرين التي أعقبت عملية الاغتيال الجبانة والغادرة.
عهداً أيها القائد وفي الذكرى الحادية والعشرين لاستشهادك نجدد العهد، عهد الرجال للرجال بأننا سنواصل مسيرة الكفاح والمقاومة حتى تحقيق كامل الأهداف والمبادئ التي ناضلت وقضيت في سبيلها وستبقى في ذاكرتنا وذاكرة شعبنا وأمتنا الى الابد.
On 21 June, two unnamed Hamas sources told Reuters that the Palestinian resistance movement had decided to restore ties with Damascus following a decade-long rift after Hamas expressed support for the Syrian opposition.
The news caused a row, and it seems that this may have been the purpose behind its leak.
Shortly after the report, dozens of websites, satellite channels and media commentators in Turkey, Qatar, and the UK who are sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood – the political Islamist group to which Hamas belongs ideologically – distanced themselves from Hamas, which has neither confirmed nor denied the reports.
However, comments made by the head of the Political Bureau of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, has added credence to these claims.
In a speech before the National Islamic Conference in Beirut, on 25 June, Haniyeh said, “The time has come after ten years to make historic reconciliations in the Islamic nation.”
“What is happening in the region today is very dangerous as Israel is paving the way through military and security alliances to fight Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas,” he added.
So how accurate are the reports about “high-profile” secret meetings between Hamas and the Syrians? Is there a relationship between Haniyeh’s visit to Beirut and the timing of these revelations?
The heavy legacy of Khaled Meshaal
When Hamas left Syria over a decade ago, the office of Khaled Meshaal, who was the head of the movement’s Political Bureau at the time, justified the decision as stemming from “moral premises.”
They contended that the Hamas movement stands with the people in deciding who will rule them, saying “even if the ruler supports our right, we will not support his falsehood.” This reverberated within the movement, and the majority of its popular base supported “Syrian revolution” in the face of “the regime that is slaughtering its people.”
That was back in 2011, when the so-called Arab Spring helped sweep the Muslim Brotherhood (MB or Ikhwan) and its affiliates into power in Egypt and Tunisia, and paved the way for the MB-aligned Syrian armed opposition to take control of the outskirts of Damascus. .
But only four years later (2015), the picture was completely reversed: Egypt’s Mohammed Morsi was ousted in a Gulf-backed military coup; Tunisian President Kais Saied turned against the Brotherhood’s Ennahda party and removed it completely from the political scene. And Damascus gradually regained control over the vital parts of Syria.
In the wider region, the regime of Omar Al-Bashir fell in Sudan, and the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence in Libya, Yemen, Jordan and Kuwait was severely diminished.
New leadership, a new direction
It was inevitable that these significant region-wide changes would also transform Hamas’ leadership to reflect the new political scene. In 2017, Ismail Haniyeh was appointed head of the Political Bureau, while that same year, Yahya Al-Sinwar, who was released from Israeli prisons in 2011, became the leader of the movement in Gaza.
Seen as a hawk, Sinwar relies on the absolute support of the movement’s military arm, the Al-Qassam Brigades, and as such, introduced a new political approach to Hamas’ regional relations.
Although Sinwar’s first move was to reorganize relations with Cairo after a four-year estrangement, by far his most important change was to revive Hamas’ relations with the Axis of Resistance, making it the movement’s top foreign policy priority.
Within a few years, the Hamas leader in Gaza had re-established full relations with Iran and Hezbollah, but its return to Damascus still remains the biggest obstacle.
In order to thaw the ice with Syria, Iran mediated first, followed by Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and more recently, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). This deadlock was not broken until after the Hamas operation “Sword of Jerusalem” in May 2021.
Testing the waters
In that same month, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad responded to a greeting from Al Qassam Brigades, conveyed by the Secretary General of PIJ Ziad Al-Nakhaleh, with a corresponding greeting. After that, contacts began to increase between Syrian officials and Hamas leaders.
Syrian sources informed The Cradle that a year ago it was decided to “reduce security measures against a number of Hamas members in Syria, release a number of detainees, and reveal the fate of other missing persons.”
But that didn’t achieve normalcy between Syria and Hamas either. There are those within the latter, it appears, who continue to sabotage progress made with Damascus.
To understand the dynamics of this particular relationship – present and its future – it is necessary to review its stages throughout the years.
From Amman to Damascus
Hamas began paving the way for its relationship with Syria in the early 1990s through visits made by its official Musa Abu Marzouk. In 1992, Mustafa Al-Ledawi was appointed as the head of an unofficial office for the Hamas in Damascus.
The great leap occurred with the visit of the founder of Hamas, the late Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, to Damascus in 1998. This official visit, and the warm reception accorded Yassin, constituted a huge breakthrough in relations, after which the late President Hafez Al-Assad authorized Hamas’ official presence in Syria, providing it with political and security facilities and logistical and material support.
Despite previous bad blood between Damascus and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, notably in regard to the Hama massacre in 1982, there were several prudent reasons for the Syrian government and Hamas to collaborate.
One reason can be traced to the rivalry between Hafez Assad and the late Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat, who sided with the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War (1990–91) after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on 2 August, 1990.
On 21 November, 1999, a plane carrying Hamas’ then-political bureau chief Khaled Meshaal landed at Damascus airport, after being expelled from Jordan and refused a reception by many Arab capitals.
Since then, a number of political bureau members relocated to Damascus, and Hamas’ activities in Syria intensified. Between 2000 and 2010, the relationship further strengthened over several events, including the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the 2005 withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon, the 2006 July war between Israel and Hezbollah, and most importantly, the Israeli aggression against Gaza in 2008.
Syrian support
Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Zahar, who was interviewed by The Cradle in Gaza, talks about an important detail that the media did not mention at the time. When Hamas formed its first government in Gaza in 2007, in which Zahar was foreign minister, “Syria was the only Arab country that recognized the diplomatic red passport issued from Gaza.”
Zahar says: “The Syrian leadership gave us everything. On my first visit to Damascus, we were able to solve the problem of hundreds of Palestinian refugees stuck on the Syrian-Iraqi borders, and Syria adopted the Palestinian calling code (+970), and expressed its willingness to provide support to the elected Palestinian government. For that, it faced an Arab, international, and American war.”
Today, Zahar is the designated official tasked by Sinwar to revive the relationship with Damascus. This was confirmed by sources in Hamas, who said that he traveled to Mecca for the Hajj pilgrimage, and may head from there to Damascus.
These details are meaningful: it means Egypt is spared the censure of allowing Zahar to travel to Syria, and would avoid an awkward situation for Cairo in front of the US, Israelis and Gulf Arabs.
From Damascus to Doha and Ankara
The Syrian crisis that erupted in March 2011 put Hamas in a unique bind of its own making. Fellow Palestinian Islamists in PIJ, for example, did not take a radical position on the “revolution” from 2011 to 2017, and were content with maintaining their offices in Damascus, although its political and military leadership relocated to Beirut due to deteriorating security conditions.
On the other hand, Hamas issued its first statement regarding the Syrian crisis on 2 April, 2011, in which it affirmed its support for the Syrian people and leadership, and considered that “Syria’s internal affairs concern the brothers in Syria… We hope to overcome the current circumstances in order to achieve the aspirations of the Syrian people, and preserve Syria’s stability and its internal cohesion, and strengthening its role in the line of confrontation and opposition.”
This wishy-washy statement did not hide the hostile stance of the movement’s members and elites, who all adopted the anti-Syrian narrative. On 5 November, 2011, the Syrian security forces stormed the offices of Hamas, confiscated its assets, and shuttered them.
In early 2012, Meshaal traveled to Doha, Qatar, before holding a scheduled meeting with Bashar Al-Assad. Hamas declared that the meeting “will not be useful.”
Hamas and the opposition
On 8 December, 2012, the movement burned bridges with Damascus when Meshaal and Haniyeh raised the flag of the “Syrian revolution” during a celebration marking the movement’s launch in the Gaza Strip in front of tens of thousands of their supporters.
In a parade held during the celebration, a number of members of the Al-Qassam Brigades wore the opposition flag on their backs.
The Syrian government’s reaction was no less restrained. Assad accused Hamas of actively participating in the war against the Syrian state by supporting Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Jabhat Al-Nusra, and by providing instructions to opposition factions on ways to dig tunnels and fortify them to withstand aerial bombardment.
Other opposition militant groups such as Bait Al-Maqdis, Faylaq Al-Rahman and Army of Huda announced that they were affiliated with Hamas.
Once an Ikhwani, always an Ikhwani
In 2016, Assad said in an interview with Syrian newspaper Al-Watan: “We supported Hamas not because they are Muslim Brotherhood, but rather we supported them on the grounds that they are resistance. In the end, it was proven that the Ikhwani (member of Muslim Brotherhood) is Ikhwani wherever he puts himself, and from the inside remains a terrorist and hypocrite.”
All this may seem a thing of the past, but it still affects the formation of a new relationship between the two parties, especially after the return of turncoat Meshaal and his team a year ago to important leadership positions in Hamas.
Although the majority of the movement’s leadership has changed, the old legacy of Meshaal still weighs heavily on everyone, especially in Damascus. There are many in Syria who still warn the “wound is open;” that Hamas has not yet closed it, but rather wants a “free return.”
Understanding Hamas’ structure
Before explaining Hamas’ recent decision to restore ties with Syria, it is necessary to know how the movement is run to ensure representation and accountability. Hamas has a Shura Council of 15 members, chosen in elections in which cadres of certain organizational ranks participate.
These cadres choose their representatives in the local advisory councils from different regions (West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem, territories occupied in 1948, and prisons). As for members of Hamas’ base, they elect their representatives in the General Consultative Council, which in turn elects the Political Bureau.
Despite this ‘healthy democracy,’ the position on Syria produced two contradictory currents:
The first current is led by Meshaal, who was head of the Political Bureau until 2017. It includes Ahmed Youssef, a former adviser to Haniyeh, and Nayef Rajoub, one of the most prominent leaders of Hamas in the West Bank.
The second current has no specific leader, but Zahar was the public face before Sinwar joined him.
Between these two viewpoints, Ismail Haniyeh and Musa Abu Marzouk maintain a state of ‘pragmatism’ by taking a middle position between the Qatar-Turkey axis and the Axis of Resistance.
Although the decision to leave Syria was taken with the full approval of the members of the Shura Council and members of the Political Bureau, the entire burden of the decision was placed on Meshaal. The man, who was a personal friend of Assad and Secretary General of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah, became blacklisted by the Axis of Resistance.
Meshaal’s influence
All prior efforts to restore relations between Hamas and Syria were a “waste of time” as long as Meshaal was at the helm of the movement. This was not only the opinion of the Syrians, but of many Iranians as well.
In 2015, for example, when there were media reports about efforts to restore Hamas-Syrian relations, the Iranian Tabnak website (supervised by General Mohsen Rezaei, a leader in the Revolutionary Guards and currently one of the advisors to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei) launched a scathing attack against Meshaal.
At that time, Meshaal had refused to visit Tehran if he was not received at the highest levels – that is – to meet specifically with Khamenei. The Tabnak website wrote: “Meshaal and the Hamas leaders lined up two years ago on the side of the international terrorists in Syria… They are now setting conditions for the restoration of relations between Hamas and Iran as if Iran did not have any conditions.”
Since that time, Meshaal and his team have remained staunchly reluctant to even talk about restoring relations with Damascus. In addition to their loyalty (to some extent) to Turkey and Qatar, they were aware that reviving relations would weaken their organizational position within Hamas, and contribute to increasing the influence of their rivals.
On the other hand, these rivals remained weak until 2017, as Meshaal managed to marginalize Mahmoud Al-Zahar who did not receive any influential positions.
Re-joining the Resistance Axis
The formation of the new Political Bureau meant there were now a large number of officials who were not involved in any public positions on the Syrian crisis – such as Sinwar, Saleh Al-Arouri, and Osama Hamdan, who maintained a balanced relationship with all parties.
Zahar told The Cradle that Sinwar was “convinced” of his theses about the shape of the “last battle with Israel.” He added: “I spoke with Abu Ibrahim (Sinwar) for a long time about restoring the bond with the components of the nation that have hostility to Israel, specifically Hezbollah, Syria and Iran, and this is the pillar of Hamas’ foreign policy in the future.”
Nevertheless, Zahar believes that Damascus “will refuse to deal with the movement’s leadership, which took the lead during the war.” But it is likely that the Syrians will accept to deal with him personally, which he will seek during his forthcoming visit.
What’s Next?
Well-informed sources in Hamas revealed to The Cradle that the movement’s Political Bureau met this month and made the decision to return to Syria, despite Meshaal’s objection.
The resolution has two aims: first, to build a resistance front in the “ring countries” surrounding Palestine; and second, to establish a maritime line of communication between Gaza and the port of Latakia, in Syria.
The sources also revealed that Jamil Mezher, who was recently elected deputy secretary general of the PFLP, conveyed a message from Sinwar to the Syrian leadership calling for the restoration of relations between the two parties.
After his visit to Damascus, Mezher met with Haniyeh in Beirut to discuss the results. Haniyeh also met Nasrallah, as well as Ziad Al-Nakhaleh in an expanded meeting of the leaderships of Hamas and the PIJ in the Lebanese capital. All these events took place in one week.
According to Hamas sources, Haniyeh informed Nasrallah that the movement has unanimously taken an official decision to restore relations with Damascus. The two sides also discussed the demarcation of the maritime border between Lebanon and Israel.
The sources confirm that “Hamas is ready to simultaneously target gas-stealing platforms from the Gaza sea, in the event that Hezbollah targets an exploration and extraction vessel in the Karish field.”
Hamas sources, as well as an informed Syrian source, however, deny holding any recent new meetings between the two parties. The Syrian source reveals that meetings sponsored by Islamic Jihad were held last year.
What does Syria stand to gain?
On the other hand, Damascus has its reasons for postponing the return of this relationship. Of course, internal reasons can be overlooked if Bashar Al-Assad himself makes the decision.
But it is the current regional situation and the re-formation of alliances that worries the Syrian leadership the most.
It is true that Assad the son, like his father, has learned the ropes in dealing with the MB, but now he has no need for a new headache caused by the return of Hamas. There is no great benefit from this return except in one case: the normalization of Syrian relations with Turkey, Qatar, or both.
On Syria’s terms
Only in this scenario, can bridges be re-built with Hamas. But the conditions for this are currently immature, as this normalization will be at the expense of Syria’s relationship with its ally Russia, whether in the issue of gas supplies to Europe or stopping the military operation that Ankara is threatening against Kurdish terrorists in northern Syria.
Syria, which has already improved its relations with the UAE, and is currently working to improve its relations with Saudi Arabia and Jordan, will not include a “losing card” in its stack of cards now.
It will also not compete with Egypt over a file – the relationship with Hamas – which Cairo considers its monopoly in the region.
Also, Damascus is not in the midst of a clash of any kind with the Palestinian Authority and the Fatah movement, which took advantage of the exit of Hamas to consolidate their position in the Syrian capital and improve their relationship with Assad.
However, when news broke about the possible resumption of Hamas-Syrian relations, this time Damascus did not launch an attack on the movement and did not comment negatively on the news of the rapprochement and the restoration of the relations – as it did previously.
There is no doubt that the battle of the “Sword of Jerusalem” and the presence of a new leadership in Hamas’ Political Bureau has thawed the ice significantly. But the answer to when full rapprochement will be achieved is a decision likely to be made between Assad and Nasrallah.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
The founder of the Communist pro-Palestine organization, the Japanese Red Army, Fusako Shigenobu, has been freed from the Japanese prisons after two decades.
Japanese Red Army founder Fusako Shigenobu is free after decades in prison
Fusako Shigenobu, 76, the founder of the Communist Japanese Red Army (JRA), was released Saturday after spending two decades behind bars in Japan over allegations of having a hand in the siege imposed on the French Embassy in The Hague in 1974.
The charges pressed against the pro-Palestinian activist were completely dismissed by Shigenobu. Three Japanese Red Army fighters had reportedly stormed the French Embassy and demanded the release of their comrade, Yatsuka Furuya, who had been arrested by the Parisian authorities earlier that year.
The operation ended after five-day-long negotiations that saw Furuya granted his freedom and the Embassy staff released unharmed. Shigenobu herself did not take part in the operation; however, the French and Japanese authorities alleged that the JRA fighters were acting under her orders, which she denied.
After two decades in prison, Shigenobu left the prison in Tokyo with her daughter as supporters of the Communist icon gathered in front of the facility and voiced support for the freedom fighter regarded as innocent of the embassy attack by many. The activist left the prison wearing the Palestinian Koufiyyeh, which reflected that over two decades of imprisonment did not break her support for the Palestinian cause.
Shigenobu was a part of the Japanese proletariat before founding the JRA, working in a soy-sauce company in a post-war Japan. The organization championed the Palestinian cause, alongside anti-imperialism and a revolution of the proletariat in Japan. In exchange for their efforts, they were slapped with the “terrorist” designation from Tokyo and Washington.
She was arrested in Japan in 2000, and the local authorities sentenced her to 20 years in prison six years later over her alleged role in the French Embassy incident. Tokyo acknowledged that Shigenobu did not take part in the attack personally, but the court claimed she had coordinated the operation with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
The JRA was also behind the 1972 “Lod Airport” operation (now known as Ben Gurion International Airport built on the rubble of Palestinian homes), which saw the organization killing eight Israeli settlers and injuring dozens of others. The operation took place as a retaliation for the Israeli occupation’s oppression of Palestinians and its occupation of Palestinian land.
The JRA is said to have been behind various other operations around the globe in support of the Palestinian cause.
Shigenobu’s pro-Palestinian ideals came early on in her life after she passed a sit-in protest at a university in the Japanese capital at 20 years old at a time the country’s youth were protesting the US war on Vietnam and Tokyo’s plans to allow Washington’s army to remain stationed on Japanese soil.
She became part of the leftist movement and left Japan years later at 25 and eventually had a child, May, with a PFLP freedom fighter in 1973. The latter hailed her mother’s release on social media.
Shigenobu, a year after her incarceration, announced the Red Army’s disbanding from prison in April 2001. Seven years later, she was diagnosed with colon and intestinal cancer, which saw her undergoing various procedures to help her recover.
She said on Saturday she would first focus on her treatment for now and explained that she would be unable to contribute to society due to her health condition.
She had written a letter to a Japan Times reporter in which she said, “Our hopes were not fulfilled, and it came to an ugly end.” But now, there is a new beginning for the activist who was wrongfully imprisoned over allegations that fell flat to many of her supporters and supporters of the Palestinian cause.
A shooting in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish town outside of the Israeli capital left six people dead, including the gunman, who was identified as 27-year old Diya Hamarshah from the occupied West Bank city of Yabad near Jenin.
This is the third attack targeting Israeli settlers in the span of a week.
On 27 March a gun attack in Hadera city left two people dead and injured several others, while on 22 March a Palestinian Bedouin was shot dead after killing four Israelis and injuring two others in a knife attack in the southern city of Beersheba, in the occupied Negev region.
In response to the attack on Bnei Brak, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett held a security meeting late on 29 March with Defense Minister Benny Gantz, later warning about a “wave of murderous Arab terrorism.”
Soon after, scores of Israelis gathered at the scene of the shooting where they could be heard chanting anti-Palestinian slogans, including “death to Arabs.”
The Israeli occupation forces have also raised the level of alert to the highest it has been since the brutal war launched on the Gaza Strip in May of last year.
According to The Times of Israel, the total of 11 victims killed in the recent attacks constitute the highest number of settlers killed in such a period within the country since the suicide bombing of a bus in 2006 killed 11 people.
Palestinian resistance factions, meanwhile, have welcomed the latest attack on Israeli settlers.
Hamas called the incident “an act of heroism” and “a natural and legitimate reaction to the escalated terrorism and crimes of the occupation against our land, people, and holy sites.”
“This is also a swift response to the shameful summit that was held in the south,” Hamas official Mushir al-Masri added, referring to the Negev Summit, in which Israel hosted a number of Arab foreign ministers.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) also praised the attack, saying “the resistance to the occupation will continue with all the force.”
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said that the attack affirms the Palestinians’ adherence to the option of resistance.
Just hours before the attack on the Tel Aviv suburb, the Israeli occupation forces deployed four additional infantry battalions to the occupied West Bank for what they called a “potential outbreak of violence during the upcoming holy month of Ramadan.”
In recent days Israel’s internal intelligence agency Shin Bet has raided several Arab cities, including Umm al-Fahm, the hometown of the men who carried out the attack in Hadera.
According to Israeli media, the raids resulted in the arrests of at least 12 individuals allegedly connected to ISIS.
The heroic operation of Hadera and the response to the path of normalization
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The Israeli media, the Sharm el-Sheikh summit, the nuclear agreement, and the escalating operations
جاء اجتماع المركزي ليُرتِّب مرحلة ما بعد محمود عباس، وليُسهِّل وصول رموز التعاون مع الاحتلال – على شاكلة ماجد فرج وحسين الشيخ – إلى قمَّة الهرم في سلطة أوسلو بعد غيابه.
في البدء، كان القرار الفلسطيني المستقل. حُكي آنذاك: يحصل هذا الأمر حتى لا يقدّم النظام الرسمي العربي تنازلاتٍ للكيان الصهيوني من دون اعتبارٍ لأصحاب الحق الأصيل، فصار بعد ذلك شعار النظام الرسمي العربي: نقبل بما يقبل به الفلسطينيون.
يَخشَى الكيان الصهيوني على استقرار سلطة أوسلو بعد غياب عباس
ومن دون الدخول في نقاشٍ حول وجاهة نظر من قال بفكرة القرار الفلسطيني المستقل، قامت بعد ذلك منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية، “الممثل الشرعي والوحيد” للشعب الفلسطيني، بالتوقيع على أوسلو، معترفةً بالكيان الغاصب، ومتنازلةً عن 87% من الأراضي العربية الفلسطينية المحتلة، وتاركةً في مهب الريح مصير ذاك الجزء من الشعب الفلسطيني الذي هُجِّر من دياره في العام 1948، وهي تنازلاتٌ ما كان ليجرؤ النظام الرسمي العربي على تقديمها، لتتوالى بعد ذلك حفلات الاعتراف العربية الرسمية بالكيان الغاصب، ولسان حالهم يقول: لن نكون ملكيين أكثر من الملك.
وفي خضمّ هذا كلّه، كانت مساعي الهيمنة على قرار منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية مستمرةً من قبل حركة “فتح”، وكانت تُحقِّق تقدماً، لتُختزَل منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية في فصيلٍ فلسطينيٍ واحدٍ بدلاً من أن تكون ممثلاً للكلِّ الفلسطيني.
وفي إثر دخول منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية مرحلة أوسلو – المقيتة الذكر – أُنشئت سلطة الحكم الذاتي المسماة السلطة الفلسطينية، ليدخل الوضع الفلسطيني مرحلة أخرى من الانحدار، حتى وصلنا إلى أن يتآمر على أبو عمار، زعيم حركة “فتح” ومؤسّسها، بعضٌ من بطانته، كي يغتاله الإسرائيلي بالسمّ، في جريمة اغتيالٍ تجاهلتها السلطة، مبرّئةً بذلك الإسرائيلي منها.
بعدها، تولى محمود عباس رئاسة السلطة الفلسطينية، ليبدأ باختزال كلٍّ من منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية وحركة “فتح” ذاتها بسلطة أوسلو. وقد نجح في ذلك نجاحاً تحسده عليه كل الأنظمة العربية! فقد أجهز على ما كان قد بقي من منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية، وحوَّله فعلياً إلى مجرد اسمٍ ليس له كيانٌ حقيقيٌ في أرض الواقع، يستحضره كختمٍ متى احتاج إليه.
ليس هذا فحسب، فقد نجح عباس في الانحدار بسلطة أوسلو إلى دركٍ تفوَّق فيه على فصائل السلام وروابط القرى مجتمعين، فما معنى أن يصير التخابر مع العدو من أجل حراسة المستوطنات في الضفة، وتأمين المغتصَبات في فلسطين 48، والسهر على أمن قُطعان المستوطنين فيهما وراحتهم، واجباً “مقدَّساً” عند محمود عباس وسلطة أوسلو؟
واليوم، جاء اجتماع المجلس المركزي الفلسطيني الأخير الذي عُقِد في 6 شباط/فبراير 2022، ليشكّل سقطةً جديدةً في مسار هذا التدهور المستمر، فطامة الشعب الفلسطيني لا تنحصر في إصرار عباس على عقد اجتماع المركزي فحسب، رغم مقاطعة الأغلبية الفلسطينية له، إذ قاطعه كلٌ من حركتي “حماس” و”الجهاد الإسلامي” و”الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين”، إضافةً إلى عدم رضا أجنحةٍ من حركة “فتح” ذاتها، بل كانت الطامة الكبرى في المغزى من عقد هذا الاجتماع، وفي مخرجاته التي كانت معروفةً مسبقاً.
يَخشَى الكيان الصهيوني على استقرار سلطة أوسلو بعد غياب عباس، بسبب التجاذبات الحادة في أوساط حركة “فتح”، ولا سيّما بعد فقدان السلطة وفريق التنسيق الأمني فيها الكثير من شعبيتهما عقب معركة “سيف القدس”، وبسبب تغول السلطة في التعاون مع الاحتلال ضد المقاومين الفلسطينيين ومصالح الشعب الفلسطيني، ففي استمرار التنسيق الأمني مع الكيان الصهيوني مصلحةٌ عليا للاحتلال وحفظٌ لأمن المستوطنات والمستوطنين.
وقد جاء اجتماع المركزي ليُرتِّب مرحلة ما بعد محمود عباس، وليُسهِّل وصول رموز التعاون مع الاحتلال – على شاكلة ماجد فرج وحسين الشيخ – إلى قمَّة الهرم في سلطة أوسلو بعد غيابه. حصل كل هذا برضا الاحتلال ومباركته، إذ عُيَّن حسين الشيخ، الأكثر التزاماً بنهج التنسيق الأمني، في منصب أمين سر اللجنة التنفيذية، ما يمهد الطريق أمامه لرئاسة سلطة أوسلو مستقبلاً. وهكذا، وصلنا إلى اختزال سلطة أوسلو أيضاً بفريق التنسيق الأمني، وتم ترتيب القيادة لمرحلة ما بعد محمود عباس برضا الاحتلال ومباركته!
لكن ما غاب عن حسابات الصهاينة في رهانهم على مجموعة التنسيق الأمني هو وجود شعبٍ فلسطينيٍ حيّ ضاق ذرعاً بسلطةٍ باتت نسخةً مكررةً من جيش “لحد” بصورةٍ مفضوحةٍ. ولا أدلّ على وصول الشارع الفلسطيني إلى هذه الحالة إلا عمليات إطلاق النار التي قام بها مؤخراً مقاومون من كتائب شهداء الأقصى التابعة لحركة “فتح” ذاتها، ناهيك بفصائل المقاومة الفلسطينية المتمسكة بخيار المقاومة في الأساس.
وكان البيان المشترك الَّذي صدر عقب اجتماع المجلس المركزي عن حركتي “حماس” و”الجهاد الإسلامي” و”الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين”، والذي رفض الاعتراف بشرعية انعقاد المجلس المركزي وقراراته، ودعا إلى تشكيل قيادة موحدة للمقاومة الشعبية، مؤشراً على شكل المرحلة القادمة.
وغاب كذلك عن حسابات الصهاينة تبدُل أحوال الإقليم، واختلال موازين القوى فيه لمصلحة حركات المقاومة العربية والإسلامية في عدة ساحاتٍ، وتراجع السطوة الأميركية في الإقليم والعالم عموماً، ما يشكِّل رافعةً لحركات المقاومة في الداخل الفلسطيني، ويجعل الرهان الإسرائيلي على استمرار سلطة أوسلو بما وصلت إليه رهاناً خاسراً.
إن الآراء المذكورة في هذه المقالة لا تعبّر بالضرورة عن رأي الميادين وإنما تعبّر عن رأي صاحبها حصراً
A joint statement by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine addressed the convening of the Palestinian Central Council that the three factions boycotted.
Joint statement: We call on the authority to immediately retract its unilateral approach.
Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) issued a joint statement about addressing the convening of the Palestinian Central Council that the three factions boycotted.
The three factions said in their statement that they were surprised faced by challenges with the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) leadership’s insistence on taking “unilateral steps that deepen the division,” stressing that “to confront the enemy” and his settlement project and break the shackles of Palestinian prisoners can only happen with unity and agreement on a national program.
The factions pointed out that the PA insisted on holding the session without reaching “a consensus, lacking everyone’s presence, and without a clear agenda,” and called on the PA to immediately reverse this “unilateral approach that dominates the institution and the national decision.”
Two days ago, the Central Council elected Rawhi Fattouh as Chairman of the Palestinian National Council, Ali Faisal and Musa Hadid as Vice Chairman of the Council, and Fahmi Zaarir as Secretary.
Three days ago, during the opening session of the Central Council for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called for “expanding the domain of peaceful popular resistance.”
ِAbbas stated that before the Israeli occupation authority undermined the “two-state solution, options remain open,” noting that “the unilateral implementation of agreements cannot continue.”
PA’s chief stressed that what he called “contacts with the Israeli side are not to substitute a political solution based on international legitimacy,” adding that “the Oslo Agreement was temporary, and we did not make any concessions that affect our principles.”
On Sunday afternoon, a meeting of the Palestinian Central Council was held in the city of Ramallah, amid a boycott from a number of Palestinian factions, most notably Hamas and PIJ, the PFLF, and the Palestinian National Initiative.
Lebanese Hezbollah condemns the horrific massacre committed by the Saudi-American coalition in Yemen and says this massacre is a miserable compensation for the catastrophic failure on the battlefield.
Hezbollah: The massacre is a miserable compensation for the catastrophic failure on the battlefield (archive photo)
Hezbollah strongly condemned “the horrific massacres committed by the Saudi-US aggression on Yemen,” denouncing the “deadly silence that envelops the world regarding these massacres.”
Today, Friday, the Lebanese party said in a statement that “this heinous massacre confirms the barbarism of the forces of aggression and their lack for human, moral and religious values.”
The party stated that “this massacre is a miserable compensation for the catastrophic failure [of the Saudi coalition] on the battlefield” calling on “the Free to stand with the Yemenis.”
The condemnation of the party came following the Saudi coalition targeting civilian neighborhoods and infrastructure in the capital, Sanaa, Saada, and Al-Hudaydah. Air raids launched by its warplanes, at dawn today, Friday, on the central prison in Saada, resulted in the deaths of more than 65 victims and the injury of more than 120.
The Saudi coalition aircraft targeted the telecommunications building in the city of Al-Hudaydah, leaving 6 victims, including 3 children, and injuring 18, most of whom are children. Sanaa was also subjected to heavy aerial bombardment by coalition warplanes.
Palestinian factions condemn Saudi massacres in Yemen
The Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine affirmed Friday that the deliberate targeting of Yemenis by US aircraft is evidence of the failure of the Saudi-led coalition aggression and its defeat on the battlefields.
In a statement, the movement condemned the massacres committed by the Saudi-led coalition, stressing that the deliberate targeting of civilians is “a desperate and cheap” attempt to break the will of Yemenis who refused the dictates of regimes that linked their fate to US-Israeli policies in the region and abandoned the Palestinian cause and Al-Quds.
The movement affirmed its support and solidarity with the Yemeni people against aggression, expressing its confidence that they will triumph over the aggression.
PFLP: Yemen will defeat aggression
For its part, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) expressed its full solidarity with the families of the victims and with the Yemeni people, wishing them a speedy deliverance from suffering.
The Popular Front stressed that with its legendary steadfastness, Yemen will eventually defeat the aggression, stressing the need for the Arab national liberation movement forces and the people of the nation to move urgently to curb and stop the aggression against Yemen.
“Gulf countries will pay the price”
In an interview with Al Mayadeen, Mahmoud Al-Zahar, a Hamas official in Gaza, confirmed that the Gulf countries will pay the price for normalization, as well as their policy in Yemen.
The Palestinian movement’s statement said the massacres committed by the Zionist-affiliated enemy coalition under US cover against the people of Yemen will turn into a stab in the hearts of the leaders of normalization.
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Crowds gather in Nablus to attend the funeral of the martyr Jamil Abu Ayyash, who was shot by the Israeli occupation during confrontations in Beita.
Mourners chanting slogans during the funeral of Jamil Abu Ayyash
Thousands of Palestinians gathered in the funeral procession of martyr Jamil Abu Ayyash, who passed away just hours after being shot in the head by occupation forces during their suppression of a march against settlements in Beita, south of Nablus.
A military procession was held for the martyr on Friday, launched in front of Rafidia Government Hospital, with the participation of Palestinian security forces. Mourners chanted slogans glorifying Abu Ayyash and past martyrs, vowing to continue their popular resistance on Mount Sbeih.
A sea of Palestinians took part in the funeral procession of Jameel Abu Ayyash in Beita today. [Credit: QNN]
While returning from the burial, Palestinian teenagers from the occupied town of Beita attacked a military checkpoint on the bypass settlement route near Beita, in addition to setting fire to rubber tires near Hawara camp.
Response of resistance factions
The brutal martyrdom of Abu Ayyash at the hands of occupation forces was heavily condemned by Palestinian resistance factions.
The Islamic Jihad movement held the occupation authorities fully accountable for their crimes against Palestinians, emphasizing that attempts to silence the Palestinian truth will never deter the Palestinians from continuing their resistance in the face of the occupation.
Resistance committees urged Palestinians to heighten resistance in all forms, “no matter the sacrifices.”
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine expressed that the escalation of popular resistance in the town of Beita and throughout the occupied land is a confirmation that the people, rooted in their land, can perform “miracles” with their steadfastness.
Bringing the number of martyrs to nine, Abu Ayyash is one of 68 civilians injured during confrontations that erupted yesterday with occupation forces near Mount Sbeih in Beita.
Daily confrontations have erupted in the town of Beita since last June, in protest of the establishment of the new “Avitar” settlement.
The Palestinian youths have been developing new forms of resistance, particularly during night confusion activities, the most recent of which was the detonation of large sound barrels in front of the occupation’s checkpoint.
Watch | Thousands of Palestinians in Nablus, north of the occupied West Bank, take part in the funeral procession of #Palestinian martyr Jamil Abu Ayyash, who was shot dead by Israeli occupation forces during anti-colonization protests in Beita village earlier today. pic.twitter.com/WN98wGLYam
On the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, factions call on the Palestinian Authority to stop all relations with “Israel,” and stress that resistance is the only way to end the occupation.
The Committees called on the PA to stop all relations, agreements, and negotiations with the Israeli occupation.
On the occasion of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, the Popular Resistance Committees in Palestine considered that the decision to partition the land represents Western and international complicity “that will not legitimize the usurpation of Palestine by the criminal Zionist enemy entity.”
The 29th of November marks the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People that the UN celebrates every year.
It also coincides with the day the UN General Assembly adopted Partition Resolution No. (181) which called for the partition of Palestinian lands to accommodate the occupation’s expansionist goals, forcefully separating the land into “Arab and Jewish states”.
The Committees considered that the partition plan “laid the foundations for the largest mass expulsion and displacement of the Palestinian people in history.”
In a statement, the Committees affirmed that the only feasible way to uproot “Israel” is through resistance in all its forms.
It called on the Palestinian Authority to stop all relations, agreements, and negotiations with the Israeli occupation, as well as withdraw its recognition of it.
In the same context, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine considered that ending the occupation could only come through the escalation of the struggle against “Israel,” and called for unifying the Arab stance against normalization.
For its part, the Palestinian Freedom Movement urged the Palestinian authority to harmonize with and acknowledge the magnitude of international solidarity that supports Palestinians and rejects the occupation.
Moreover, the Global Campaign to Return to Palestine celebrated the occasion through a series of projects and activities in support of the Palestinian people and their steadfastness in their land.
The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people is considered an opportunity to draw attention to the Palestinian cause that remains unresolved and the fact that Palestinians have not obtained their inalienable rights, despite numerous international resolutions.
The Palestinian resistance factions unanimously agree that the recent British decision to classify Hamas as a “terrorist organization” is biased toward the Israeli occupation.
The factions pointed out that “the British decision exposes the pro-Zionist policy since the Balfour Declaration.”
The Palestinian resistance factions condemned the UK’s recent decision to consider the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, a “terrorist organization.”
The factions pointed out that “the British decision exposes the pro-Zionist policy since the Balfour Declaration.”
They indicated that such decisions will encourage the occupation to commit more crimes against Palestinians under international cover.
Nonetheless, the “hateful” British policies will only increase the resistance’s determination to confront the occupation and defeat it, the factions affirmed.
The resistance factions called on Britain to retract the “unjust” decision, which they described as an attack on the Palestinians’ right to resist the occupation and restore their land.
PFLP calls on Britain to retract “biased” decision
For its part, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) denounced the British decision and said it targets the legitimate resistance of the Palestinian people.
The PFLP also demanded Britain to retract the “biased” decision and urged the country to correct its mistake that led to the establishment of the Israeli occupation settlements on the Palestinian lands.
In the same context, the PFLP asked supporters in Britain and Europe to stand up to this decision and condemn it, stressing that Britain is biased to the Israeli occupation crimes, assaults, and land confiscation, which represent the “real terrorism.”
In the same context, the Mujahideen movement brigades strongly rejected the recent decision and considered that it is part of the continuous Western aggression against Palestinians.
The movement affirmed that the UK decision will strengthen the will of Hamas and its leadership in resisting the occupation, adding that the leaders of the occupation are the ones who should be included on the terrorism list.
The Palestinian embassy in Britain urged Britain to reconsider the decision
In a statement, the Palestinian Mission to the UK condemned the latest British decision classifying Hamas as a terrorist organization, and considered that “with this move, the British government has complicated Palestinian unity efforts and undermined Palestinian democracy.”
The head of the Mission, Husam Zomlot, urged the UK government to reconsider its decision and to adopt a more even-handed approach.
British Home Secretary Priti Patel: “We can no longer disaggregate the sort of military and political side.”
British Home Secretary Priti Patel announced Friday, that Hamas Movement was ‘outlawed’; a move consistent with the US and EU’s stance on the Movement.
Patel said, “Hamas has the significant terrorist capability, including access to extensive and sophisticated weaponry, as well as terrorist training facilities,” adding, “That is why today I have acted to proscribe Hamas in its entirety.”
“We’ve taken the view that we can no longer disaggregate the sort of military and political side. It’s based upon a wide range of intelligence, information and also links to terrorism. The severity of that speaks for itself,” the Secretary added.
Until now, only Hamas’ military wing was banned in the United Kingdom, while the Movement is blacklisted in the US and the EU.
If Britain adopts this designation after next week’s scheduled debate in Parliament, membership in Hamas or the promotion of the Movement will be punishable with imprisonment of up to 14 years, under the provisions of the British “Anti-Terrorism Act”, according to the Ministry of the Interior.
Once it became clear to the Israeli government that their European friends were not buying the claim that these human rights organizations are connected to terrorism, and would refuse to stop funding them, Israel pulled out the “big gun” and designated them as “terrorist organizations.”
JERUSALEM — The recent designation by the Israeli government of six Palestinian human rights organizations as “terrorist” organizations is yet another draconian step on the path to the total elimination of Palestinian civil society. Some parallels can be drawn between the Israeli action taken against these organizations and the 2001 U.S. government designation and closure of the Holy Land Foundation, or HLF, after 9/11 — a story I wrote about in my book, “Injustice, The Story of the Holy Land Foundation.”
From the use of corrupt witnesses — who, motivated by things other than the truth, are willing to lie — to the more broad strategy of weaponizing the designation of who is a “terrorist,” Israel is using the same playbook as the United States.
The Israeli Justice and Defense ministries shocked the world and puzzled even Israel’s most staunch allies when they designated several leading Palestinian NGOs as arms of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or PFLP.
The PFLP has been designated a terrorist organization by Israel, the U.S., EU, Canada, and several other countries. The Israeli ministries issued documents classifying Addameer, Al Haq, Bisan Center, Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI-P), Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC) as branches of the PFLP.
A 74-page document that the Israeli government sent to its international allies is at the heart of this case. This document supposedly demonstrates what Israel called “solid evidence,” but is based on the testimony of two bookkeepers who worked for a Palestinian organization not related to the six that were designated.
The two bookkeepers had never worked for any of the six organizations that were designated and were fired from their jobs altogether due to mismanagement of funds. According to their lawyers, their testimony — such as it was — is inadmissible because during their interrogation by the Shabak, the Israeli secret police, they were tortured.
Weaponizing the designation of “terrorism”
The government report includes a list of European countries to which Israel appealed to stop funding these organizations. The countries listed included Switzerland, Holland, Germany, the U.K., Spain, and Belgium, among others that, all told, were funding the human rights organizations to the tune of several million dollars per year. However, it seems that the attempt to prevail upon the Europeans failed, mainly because they were not convinced by the evidence Israel presented.
According to the Jerusalem Post, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said during a visit to occupied Jerusalem that, “Israel hasn’t shown Ireland or the European Union credible evidence to prove that there is substance behind its decision last week to designate six Palestinian nongovernmental groups as terror entities.” He went on to say: “We have asked for, as has the EU, the evidence basis for designating those NGOs, but we have not gotten any credible evidence to link the NGOs to terrorism.”
Directors of five Palestinian human rights groups declared ‘terrorist organizations’ by Israel, October 27, 2021. Keren Manor | Active Stills
A report in the Hebrew publication MEKOMIT — which has a copy of the document Israel had sent and had been communicating with European officials — claims that the Dutch Foreign Minister and the Belgian Minister for Regional Development both said that the document did not contain a single item that proved a connection between the six organizations and the PFLP. Also according to MEKOMIT, the Swedish and Belgian governments conducted their own independent investigations into the matter and found no incriminating evidence.
Once it became clear to the Israeli government that their European friends were not buying the claim that these organizations are connected to terrorism, and would refuse to stop funding them, Israel pulled out the “big gun” and designated them as terrorist organizations.
The HLF
One of the key witnesses in the HLF trial was a man who embezzled over half a million dollars from his employer. In exchange for lying about HLF, he was never charged with embezzlement but instead admitted to one count of material support for terrorism and served a reduced sentence. When I was working on my book, I tried to reach him but was not able to find him.
Throughout the 1990s, Zionist organizations and politicians in the U.S. tried to discredit the HLF by claiming that it was funding terrorism. Because there was no proof, they didn’t succeed, although they did cause some harm: the FBI began tapping the phones of some of the people involved with HLF.
In the trial, Shukri Abu Baker, the HLF’s CEO, discovered that his phone was being tapped for almost a decade. Since many of the conversations he had were in Arabic, they needed to be translated. Those translations were done by someone more interested in pleasing the FBI than translating what was said and thus the translator gravely misrepresented the content of the conversations, incriminating Shukri and the others.
After the attacks of September 11, the U.S. government cynically took advantage of the anti-Muslim and anti-Arab propaganda used to defame the HLF and on December 4, 2001, President George Bush closed the organization down, declared the HLF a terrorist organization, and ordered the Treasury Department to freeze its assets.
Lawyers for the HLF challenged the government to provide proof but none was forthcoming and the government resorted to “national security” to excuse the blatant violation of rights it had perpetrated against the HLF as an organization and the officers who ran it. The government also produced a list of “unindicted co-conspirators,” which included thousands of people and organizations who were connected or had contributed to HLF over the years.
Designation
During the cross-examination of one of the government’s witnesses, HLF lawyers were able to reveal just how low the bar was set when the government decided to designate an organization or an individual as “terrorist.”
In one exchange that I quote in my book, “Injustice,” a U.S. Treasury official by the name of McBrien was asked by HLF lawyer Jon Cline how the designation was made. McBrien explained that either the President or the Department of Treasury Office of Foreign Asset Control, known as OFAC has the authority to designate a “Specially Designated Terrorist,” based on, “a reasonable belief that the person or organization is owned, or controlled by or acting on behalf of a designated party.”
Clines pressed on, stating, “What is required for a designation under that provision is a reasonable belief. It is not proof by a preponderance of evidence, like you have in court.”
“That is correct,” McBrien replied.
In other words, the government does not have to abide by any particular rules of evidence in order to designate a person or an organization as a terrorist.
The value of Israeli intelligence
Another important connection that can be made between the HLF case and the recent case of human rights organizations being designated as terrorist organizations, is the quality and value of Israeli intelligence.
One of the key witnesses for the defense in the HLF trial was former U.S. Consul General Ed Abington. Prior to serving in this post, Abington worked as a CIA analyst. Here is one exchange that took place during his testimony:
Q: How often would you and in what form did you see information that the CIA collected from Israeli intelligence?
A: On an almost daily basis.
Q: As a United States representative, did you consider Israeli intelligence to be reliable?
A: No.
Q: Why is that?
A: I feel that the Israelis have an agenda in terms of trying to influence the thinking of U.S. policy makers and that they apply intelligence in a selective fashion to try to influence U.S. thinking.
Abington was also asked about documents that were provided by the government of Israel, and he said, “the State Department considered the documents to be essentially a propaganda exercise by the Israelis.” Abington ended by saying, “You can’t really rely on these documents as showing a true picture.”
It seems that the European governments that were shown Israeli documents regarding the six human rights organizations feel the same way.
Israeli ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, was rushed out of the London School of Economics amid protests condemning her appearance.
“Israel’s” ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, was rushed out of an event at the London School of Economics Tuesday, as protests formed on campus condemning her appearance.
Politics For All, a UK Political account on Twitter, posted a video of the evacuation, showing Hotovely being rushed out into a car as crowds chanted “shame on you!”
🚨 | NEW: Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely fleeing the London School of Economics
Hotovely had been invited by the LSE’s student union to take part in a debate, sparking controversy, as pro-Palestine groups at the school accused the student union of giving a platform to racism.
The Israeli occupation’s ambassador is a member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and is a supporter of the occupation’s settler colonialist practices. She has also used Islamophic rhetoric on numerous occasions.
No evidence to back up Israeli claims
The occupation has also recently designated 6 Palestinian NGOs as “terrorist organizations,” sparking condemnation from various human rights groups and EU countries.
Five European members of the UN Security Council revealed Tuesday their serious concerns over the Israeli move. France, Estonia, Ireland, Norway, and Albania released a joint statement on the matter.
“Israel” has failed to provide evidence to convince European officials that the 6 NGOs were linked to the PFLP or “violent activities”, as they claimed.
The United Nations says “Israel” is putting human rights defenders at risk with their decision to designate several Palestinian NGOs as terrorists based on no evidence.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet
“Israel’s” designation of 6 prominent Palestinian civil society groups as outlawed “terrorist organizations” is an unjustified attack, Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations Commissioner of Human Rights, said Tuesday.
The Israeli occupation had classified last week 6 Palestinian NGOs as “terrorist,” attributing their baseless decision to said organizations “financing the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.”
Bachelet said the decision was an attack on human rights defenders, on freedoms of association, opinion and expression, and the right to public participation, calling for the move to be immediately revoked.
“Anti-terrorism legislation” should be applied to legitimate human rights and humanitarian aid activities, she asserted.
“The organizations… face far-reaching consequences as a result of this arbitrary decision, as do the people who fund them and work with them,” she said.
The NGOs “Israel” designated terrorist have been delivering humanitarian aid to Palestinians harmed by the Israeli occupation and who’ve had their human rights abused in the occupied territories.
The commissioner argued the decision would have “a chilling effect” on human rights defenders.
“The crucial work they perform for thousands of Palestinians risks being halted or severely restricted,” she added.
The Commissioner also argued that claiming rights before the United Nations or other international bodies does not constitute an act of terrorism, citing advocating for women’s rights in the occupied Palestinian territories and providing legal aid to detained Palestinians.
She stressed that those actions are not acts of terrorism while pointing to the obvious: The Israeli occupation did not present any evidence to support its allegations against the NGOs, nor did it conduct a public process to establish the accusations.
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 