West Bank militants warn their own leaders and threaten Israel

• Israeli soldiers are targeting these men for kill or capture in an effort to quell a rapidly spreading armed uprising.
• They are associated with a cell of armed militants, IDF says.
• An Israeli military strike squad might launch an assault.

Four M4 Carbine rifles built in the US rest against the sofa’s back. The young men, most of whom are clothed in black civilian attire, are amiable and gregarious. Through a door that is left open to the street, neighbors peer in to say hello.

That is strange.

Because a new Israeli military operation is targeting these men for kill or capture in an effort to quell a rapidly spreading armed uprising in the north of the West Bank.

Six men drink tea. They are being sought after, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), because they are associated with a cell of armed militants who are preparing additional assaults against Israeli sites.

Most of the back wall is covered in “martyr posters.” Young men from the Jenin Brigade, the majority of whom were slain in combat with Israeli soldiers, smile across the room at their surviving companions. Now fidgeting with their phones, the men are aware that they might move from the sofa to that wall. Any moment, an Israeli military strike squad might launch an assault.

The camp for refugees in Jenin. A hub of armed resistance against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank – and the survival of the Jewish state itself – for more than 20 years, it is less than half a kilometer square, home to roughly 12,500 people. Its cramped lanes and run-down houses are tightly packed and tense.

It is closed at noon whereas Jenin, a nearby town, is bustling with activity. According to the locals, many prefer to sleep during the day because fighting frequently occurs at night.

Eight Israeli citizens were slain earlier this year when militants from the Jenin area attacked Tel Aviv and the neighboring city of Bnei B’rak. In those occurrences, there were two militants who were both slain.

Armed attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians have increased this year. In contrast to the 61 shooting attacks in 2021, the IDF reports that there have been about 180 gunshot incidents in Israel and the occupied territories this year. Palestinians have surrendered 900 guns to the Israeli police and military.

Two days after we met, Israeli soldiers attacked Jenin in an operation against the militants, killing another Palestinian teenager who was 19 and a member of the Jenin Brigade’s militant armed group.

According to IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, Jenin is a “hornets’ nest.”

Hebrew is inscribed on some of the M4 guns that the Palestinian terrorists are holding. The weapons are stolen by senior Israeli commanders, who then sell them. At our covert meeting in the Jenin Refugee Camp, a leader of the Jenin Brigade declares, “We buy them on the underground market with money we raise ourselves.

According to a report from the Israeli Knesset in 2020, there were 400,000 illicit firearms in use in Israel. Although the IDF acknowledges that weapons have been taken, it disputes the likelihood that “high officers” are responsible.

Many are smuggled into the West Bank, according to the IDF. We are making significant efforts to understand how criminal gangs and terrorism are related, Hecht acknowledges.

The past 10 months have been the worst since 2015; this year, at least 131 Palestinians (excluding Gaza) and 21 Israelis or foreigners have died.

But there has also been a change, not merely in the intensity of armed attacks against Israeli targets and Israel’s responses, but also in the growing hostility toward the Palestinian Authority’s leadership (PA).

Indeed, the militants of the Jenin Brigade, who hide from Israeli surveillance drones by sitting in the shadow of olive trees, had a scarcely concealed warning to make against the PA.

The man in charge of this delegation of fighters adds, “This is a message to the Palestinian leadership: if they believe in the will of the Palestinian people, they have to join the resistance and grant the resistance fighters the freedom to defend and protect our people.”

Escalating danger

A group called the “Lion’s Den” is rapidly expanding in Nablus; it is not under the supervision of the PA, Hamas, or Islamic Jihad.

They “make up a target and then go and solicit funds from Hamas or Islamic Jihad but they don’t receive orders from anyone,” according to the IDF. According to Hecht, Israeli forces are determined to attempt and disband these armed groups in order to lessen the threat to Israel.

“We’re highly focused on exact intelligence: when we observe ticking bombs, the movement of weapons, rhetoric, and warnings online, then we intervene to stop it,” the official continues.

An explosives plant and what the Israeli security forces claimed to be the Lion’s Den’s leadership were the targets of a raid on Nablus on Tuesday. In the raid, at least five Palestinian men were slain.

The Palestinian brigade commander in Jenin talks about upcoming operations with militants in the West Bank and overseas that he hopes would “start a regional conflict” to emerge from the camp.

However, the likelihood that the Palestinian Authority, which oversees the majority of the 3.1 million inhabitants, would be drawn into a direct conflict with Israel increases as the fighting and bloodshed intensify. Israel is particularly worried about the second scenario.

Israel would have to physically police the entire territory and pay for it if the PA leadership disintegrated and went back to active resistance throughout the entire West Bank.

“The biggest worry is the PA crumbling or dissolving. It would be a living nightmare for us to return to the communities, the Israeli government official claims.

This would go back to the time before the Oslo peace negotiations. to the period when Palestinian organizations waged a global campaign of violence, including terrorist acts, in the name of freedom. to a time when Israel was essentially alone in the world and had to use its own resources to pay its obligations to the Palestinians it occupied.

The Jenin Brigade and others might be hoping for exactly that.

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