Beirut, Lebanon – The Palestinian Authority (PA) is cracking down on armed groups in the Jenin refugee camp in what experts see as an attempt to restore its limited authority in the occupied West Bank and persuade the new US president, Donald Trump, that it can provide useful security. partner.
However, the crackdown has brought condemnation from many Palestinians, particularly after the Saturday night killing of 21-year-old journalist Shatha Sabbagh, who was reporting from Jenin and whose family said she was killed by AP shots.
Since the PA raids began, they have been criticized as serving Israel’s interests by supporting the Palestinian struggle for freedom and self-determination.
“Over the past few years, the Palestinian Authority has lost control of the West Bank and I imagine it is trying to regain control to prove its worth to those who control it – Israel and the United States,” said Omar Rahman, an Israel expert. -Palestine with the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, a think tank based in Doha, Qatar.
“I think he’s trying to prove that he can play a role that is still relevant today, especially at a time when there are voices within the Israeli government trying to force the collapse of the Palestinian Authority. Rahman told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Heavy repression
Over the past three years, Israeli raids – carried out by both the army and settlers – have killed and displaced many civilians in the West Bank and destroyed homes and livelihoods.
Since attacks by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, Israeli forces and settlers have intensified their attacks in the West Bank, killing 729 Palestinians, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
At least 63 of them were from the Jenin camp.
Palestinian Authority security forces have adopted some Israeli tactics since launching an operation against the camp in early December.
They surrounded the camp with armored personnel carriers, fired indiscriminately on civilians, summarily arrested and mistreated young men, and cut off water and electricity supplies.
A video circulating online and verified by Sanad, Tel Aviv Tribune’s verification agency, shows Palestinian Authority agents putting a young man in a trash can and beating him.
“(The Americans) have trained PA security forces to act like SWAT teams and special forces – not civilian police – to suppress (Palestinian) armed groups,” said expert Tahani Mustafa on Israel-Palestine for the International. Crisis group.
“Whenever you see American involvement in terms of training, that’s when you see harsh and coercive tactics deployed against the Palestinians,” she told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Security cooperation
The PA was ostensibly created to create a Palestinian state after the Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995, which initiated a peace process between then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister the time, Yitzhak Rabin.
Under these agreements, the PA’s Western donors – the European Union and the United States – tasked it with guaranteeing Israel’s security by eradicating Palestinian armed groups in the occupied Palestinian territory, according to Diana Buttu , Palestinian jurist and former advisor and spokesperson for the PA. .
In the 1990s, she explained, the PA defended its crackdown on armed groups as necessary to protect the peace process.
However, the existing peace process has been dead for at least two decades due to Israel’s continued confiscation of Palestinian land to build Israeli settlements, she said.
These settlements are illegal under international law and since Oslo, the number of settlers has increased from 250,000 to more than 700,000, according to Peace Now, an Israeli nonprofit that tracks illegal settlements.
Since October 7, 2023, Peace Now said, Israel has confiscated more Palestinian land in the West Bank – 23.7 km² (9.15 square miles) – than in the last 20 years combined.
Buttu criticizes PA leader Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, for continuing to stick to the Oslo process when Israel has so blatantly abandoned it.
“He is attacking the very people who want liberation, not from him, but from Israel,” Buttu told Tel Aviv Tribune.
The PA’s security mandate has put it in direct conflict with Hamas, a rival faction that refused to give up armed struggle against the Israeli occupation after defeating Fatah in the 2006 legislative elections.
Western donors to the PA – primarily the United States – pressured Fatah to bring Hamas under control, exacerbating tensions between the two factions and leading to a brief civil war that began in 2006.
The conflict led to a split within the Palestinian national movement that has still not been bridged despite numerous attempts at reconciliation.
Fatah, under the Palestinian Authority, has since administered two-thirds of the West Bank while Hamas controlled Gaza.
“(The Palestinian Authority’s) tactics have never been successful. It never captured the hearts and minds of the Palestinians,” Buttu said.
Fight to survive
Palestinian Authority officials reportedly argue that the operation in the Jenin refugee camp is necessary, otherwise Israel will use the presence of fighters there as a pretext to expel more Palestinians from their homes and land in the West Bank, as he did it in Gaza.
However, experts say Israel plans to formally annex the West Bank and collapse the Palestinian Authority, regardless of whether armed resistance continues.
Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has already nearly crushed the Palestinian banking system by refusing to renew a government waiver allowing Israeli banks to interact with Palestinian banks.
The Palestinian Authority does not have its own central bank and therefore relies on the Israeli banking system to pay salaries and guarantee vital imports.
Bowing to US pressure, Smotrich renewed the waiver for another year in early December, but experts fear he will not do so again during the Trump presidency, which begins January 20.
Failure to do so would lead to the economic collapse of the PA – and the West Bank – and accelerate the formal annexation of the West Bank, said Rahman of the Middle East Council.
Furthermore, Rahman warned that the ensuing chaos could serve as a pretext for Israel to ethnically cleanse the West Bank. That’s why he believes the Palestinian Authority is trying to persuade the new Trump administration that it remains a valuable partner in strengthening Israel’s security.
“You can’t blame the Palestinian Authority for trying to prevent something like this from happening,” Rahman told Tel Aviv Tribune. “At the same time, they don’t have an alternative vision. »
Mustafa of the International Crisis Group agrees, adding that the Palestinian Authority has isolated itself from regional states and its own constituents, making its survival dependent on Israel and its backers.
“Israel is going to annex the West Bank, and we are already seeing this reality – de facto and de jure,” she said. “(The annexation) won’t be grand, but it will happen slowly.”
“The Palestinian Authority is truly counting its days. »
