The Palestinian Authority announced an unusually public crackdown on militants in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Saturday, sending armored vehicles through the streets of the city of Jenin, where the armed groups have become increasingly powerful.
Palestinian security forces began their operation in Jenin to “put an end to sedition and chaos,” said Brig. Gen. Anwar Rajab, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority’s security services. They killed a local militant ringleader, according to General Rajab and two residents.
As fighting has raged between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, the rising influence of militants in cities like Jenin and Tulkarm has also prompted a deadly cycle of Israeli military operations, which have often lasted for days and devastated Palestinian neighborhoods.
The militants — often affiliated with groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad — oppose both Israel and the internationally backed Palestinian Authority, which administers some West Bank areas under Israeli occupation. The fragile Authority has struggled to fully crack down on the militants, fearing that doing so would undermine its already tenuous rule among Palestinians who see it as too close to Israel.
Violence in the West Bank has sharply escalated since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel last year that triggered the war in Gaza. Since then, Israeli security forces and civilians have killed at least 700 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the United Nations.
The Biden administration has called for the Palestinian Authority to ultimately take control over Gaza after Israel’s war against Hamas ends. Israeli officials have often rejected such a proposal, in part by pointing to the spiraling unrest in the West Bank, arguing that the Palestinian government is unable to rule its own backyard.
On Saturday, Palestinian security forces entered the Jenin refugee camp and killed Yazid Jaayseh, a local militant ringleader. The camp is a built-up neighborhood founded decades ago by Palestinian refugees displaced by the wars surrounding the establishment of Israel in 1948.
In a statement, Hamas mourned Mr. Jaayseh as a leader in a local militant group, although it did not claim him as a member. Hamas said the Palestinian Authority’s crackdown against the armed groups was “absolutely identical to Israel’s aggression and criminality,”
General Rajab vowed that Palestinian security forces had begun “a new stage” that aimed to “regain control of the Jenin camp from lawbreakers who ruin the lives of the citizenry.”
Two Palestinian officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they was not authorized to speak publicly, said that the operation around Jenin’s refugee camp was ongoing.
Omar Obeid, a 62-year-old resident of Jenin’s refugee camp, said he was huddled at home with family members. Intense gunfire between the Palestinian Authority’s forces and the militants began around 5 a.m. and had yet to let up, he said.
“None of this fighting should ever have happened,” Mr. Obeid lamented. “Violence isn’t going to get us anywhere. We need a bigger solution.”
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