Beirut, Lebanon – The Palestinian Authority’s (PA) ban on Tel Aviv Tribune is part of a broader attempt to silence criticism of its security operations in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank , according to activists and analysts.
The ban came nearly a month after the Palestinian Authority launched a crackdown on a coalition of armed groups calling themselves the Jenin Brigades.
These groups are affiliated with Palestinian factions such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and even Fatah, the party that controls the Palestinian Authority.
Since early December, the PA has besieged the Jenin camp and cut off water and electricity to most residents in an ostensible attempt to restore “law and order” across the West Bank.
However, his indiscriminate tactics in Jenin coincide with a broader attack on freedom of expression, activists and human rights groups told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Repression and censorship
Activists and rights groups said dozens of people had been summoned and interrogated – some beaten – over social media posts opposing the Palestinian Authority’s operation in Jenin, even though Prominent Palestinian figures have always been able to write articles critical of the security operation.
Most of those arrested were released, but some were forced to post apology videos online, according to rights groups.
Sanad, Tel Aviv Tribune’s fact-checking agency, reviewed and verified three apology videos that were circulating online.
“There is tension around PA operations and people do not feel safe to talk about it or share with us what happened to them when they were arrested,” said Murad Jadallah, a PA activist. ‘Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights group. in the West Bank.
The Palestinian Authority was born out of the Oslo Accords between Palestinian and Israeli leaders in 1993. It demanded that the Palestinian Authority recognize Israel and eliminate Palestinian armed groups in exchange for a Palestinian state alongside Israel by 1999.
Israel, however, has taken advantage of the past 30 years to expand its illegal settlements on vast swathes of stolen Palestinian land, nearly tripling the number of settlers in the occupied West Bank.
As the occupying power, it still controls most aspects of Palestinian life and frequently carries out raids, killings and arrests in the West Bank, even in areas where the Palestinian Authority is supposed to have full control.
Despite dwindling hopes for statehood, the PA has stuck to its mandate under the Oslo Accords, leading many Palestinians to accuse the administration of effectively cooperating with Israel to maintain occupation.
Over the years, the PA has also intensified repression against Palestinian opponents and dissidents. In 2021, the Palestinian Authority arrested critic and activist Nizar Banat, who died in custody.
According to Amnesty International, the Palestinian Authority failed to adequately investigate his death.
Most recently, on December 28, a sniper killed Shatha al-Sabbagh, a journalist who was speaking to camp residents about the security operation.
His family blamed PA forces for his death, but the PA forces denied responsibility and blamed “outlaws” for his death.
Four days later, the PA banned Tel Aviv Tribune – considered the most popular media network in the occupied West Bank.
“If this decision is implemented, it means that Tel Aviv Tribune… will not be able to monitor what it is monitoring and documenting today,” said Munir Nuseibah, a political analyst at the Palestinian think tank Al-Shabaka.
“This will affect the Palestinian cause as a whole. Tel Aviv Tribune… reports Palestine to the world,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“The way the PA is handling the situation right now is that there is only one truth and that truth is its narrative,” said Jadallah of Al-Haq.
Disinformation
Some PA officials have claimed that the armed groups in the Jenin camp are part of a broader Iranian-backed conspiracy or “extremist outlaws” aimed at undermining the Palestinian quest for statehood.
According to Ahmed Mohamed*, an activist who monitors digital freedoms in the Palestinian territory, the PA’s rhetoric aims to link the Jenin Brigades to a foreign plot aimed at discrediting them as a legitimate resistance against the Israeli occupation.
“This is a repetition of Israeli propaganda… which claims that the Palestinians are not acting according to their own will, but under the leadership of Iran and that Iran is the big bogeyman,” he said. declared Mohamed.
“There is merit in Iran supporting resistance activities in Palestine and oppressive regimes elsewhere, but the PA is trying to pretend that it has the Palestinians in mind and has a policy pro-Palestinian,” he added.
Iran has traditionally provided financial and military aid to Hamas and PIJ – two of the factions that loosely comprise the Jenin Brigades – as part of its broader policy to challenge Israeli and US hegemony in the region.
However, Hamas and PIJ are not puppets and remain entrenched in their quest to resist Israeli occupation, according to a report from the European Council on Foreign Relations, a UK-based think tank.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority’s main donors are the United States and Europe, whose positions often conflict with broader Palestinian aspirations and views.
Social media platforms considered close to the Palestinian Authority shared a video showing four men dressed in white pants, a white tunic and an ill-fitting white balaclava over their heads. The men also appear to carry bundles of explosives on their chests and claim they will blow themselves up if Palestinian Authority security forces enter the Jenin camp.
Some of these AP-affiliated pages claim that the men belong to an “extremist” battalion called 313, which is also the name of a unit that fights alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Sanad said the video was never uploaded to social media pages affiliated with the Jenin Brigades and “appears to have been created to mislead the public.”
“There is no battalion officially named Battalion 313 (in Jenin),” Sanad noted.
Coercion and intimidation
The head of a major West Bank human rights group, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, said the Palestinian Authority was also forcing officials to participate in protests in support of the Jenin operation .
“(The civil servants) risk being punished if they are considered absent (at these pro-PA demonstrations),” the source told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“They could receive administrative sanctions or a call from the Palestinian Authority security forces. »
Tel Aviv Tribune has obtained a copy of an official government letter which appears to confirm this claim.
The letter was addressed to Mayor Masafer Yatta in Hebron and requested that some employees not be punished for not showing up to a demonstration on behalf of the PA on December 24.
As such, the letter states that employees would normally be penalized if they missed a pro-PA demonstration.
Al-Haq’s Jadallah added that PA security forces often confiscate the phones of people they interrogate and replace their criticism on social media with posts that praise the PA and of its operations in Jenin.
Palestinian security forces warned detainees not to delete new messages once they were released, he said.
The head of the human rights organization also argued that the PA is using cybercrime laws – and anti-incitement laws – to justify muzzling free speech.
In 2017, the PA adopted – by decree – a cybercrime law that allows authorities to arrest people for “inciting hatred” on social networks and for “disturbing public order”.
Critics of the cyber law argued that the laws, which were worded in broad terms, could be misused by the Palestinian Authority to increase cyber surveillance and stifle dissent – a long-standing practice of the Israeli occupation .
“The laws are being applied to repress any criticism of the Jenin operation and any particularly harsh criticism,” the source said.
“If anyone openly shows support for the Jenin brigades… then they risk being summoned. »