Andrew Grossman
For the past three weeks, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has besieged the Jenin refugee camp, clashing in gun battles with the Palestinian resistance and attacking mass demonstrations against the siege by the residents of Jenin. According to PA spokesmen, the aim is to arrest and disarm “outlaws” and “restore order” in the Jenin refugee camp—which is not a camp in the usual sense, but a city of refugees displaced by Israel within Jenin.
The Jenin camp is a resistance stronghold in the West Bank, and was the site of intense fighting during the Second Intifada in 2002, a mass uprising which included armed actions by the Palestinian resistance.
According to the Palestine Chronicle, about 300 PA soldiers are taking part in the siege, cutting off access to the camp for municipal services and shutting off water and electricity to the population.
A Jenin Battalion statement claims that 237 PA soldiers have refused to participate in attacking their own people and have been arrested by the PA. So far, the PA has admitted to the deaths of two of its soldiers and a number of wounded in clashes with the resistance, while the resistance has suffered the death of two of its commanders. The PA has also killed two children, prompting mass anger from the residents of the camp.
The deeply-unpopular PA was established by the Oslo Accords as a precursor to a Palestinian state, and is nominally linked to the Palestinian Fatah faction. However, Fatah has many divisions including a significant number of pro-resistance forces, especially among its youth leagues. The PA has not organized its promised elections to establish a government since its inception, and functions as a lackey collaborator force for Israel and the US. PA forces are trained in Jordan by the US military and deployed outside of their hometowns, often used to clear resistance defenses before IDF raids.
The PA claims that resistance forces refuse dialogue, but the resistance says what the PA offered was disarmament in exchange for money and promised amnesty for resistance fighters. In a video address, one resistance fighter stated in reference to the offer that he would rather have “60 years of war than be humiliated for one day”.
In response to the siege, the Jenin Battalion, affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s al-Quds Brigades, have called for a general strike which the people instituted, shutting down the city’s usual functioning. Demonstrations against the siege have been met with crackdowns by PA security forces. The resistance generally avoids attacking the PA while refusing to be disarmed by them, issuing calls for unity against Israel.
Monopoly media speculates this is a show of force by the PA, who doesn’t expect to defeat the resistance, but instead to signal to incoming president Donald Trump that it remains viable as a US-Zionist lackey.
Israel is continually invading the West Bank and terrorizing its people while facilitating the expansion of Israeli settlements and land seizures. On Sunday, the Israeli government told PA leader Abbas that the siege needs to end soon so that the IDF can itself invade Jenin in its aftermath— on Tuesday (12/24) Israeli forces have raided and bombed Tulkarm, Nablus, and Ramallah in the West Bank, killing at least 8 people and abducting dozens while demolishing homes, shops, and streets. Al Qassam and al Quds Brigades have released statements claiming targeted IEDs and gun battles against the invaders in Tulkarm.
image: Jenin Battalion commander Yazid Ja’ayseh, killed by the Palestinian Authority
