The West Bank Dispatch newsletter covers the main developments you need to know about Palestinian resistance to Israeli settler-colonialism in the occupied West Bank. Each week we’ll bring you key developments, analysis from our Palestine news team, and insight into what Palestinians living under Israeli apartheid in the West Bank are reading and talking about.
Key Developments (Nov 7 – 14)
- Three Palestinians killed by the Israeli army
- Israeli forces continue assassination campaign of resistance militants, turn attention to Balata refugee camp.
- At least 56 Palestinians detained during army raids
In-Depth
Last week, the Israeli army’s ongoing military campaign against armed Palestinian resistance groups shifted its focus from the Old City of Nablus (after claiming to have quelled the Lions’ Den resistance group there) to Balata refugee camp, home to the armed Balata Brigade (or Katibet Balata in Arabic). On November 7, the army conducted its first large-scale military invasion of the camp, marshaling a convoy of armored vehicles and dozens of soldiers to arrest two teenage brothers, Wael and Yousef Musheh (15 and 16 respectively). Their family home was invaded and they were pulled from their beds and beaten severely before being dragged out of their home and detained by the army. Yousef Musheh was released today, November 14, while Wael’s trial is scheduled for Tuesday, November 22, and faces charges of being part of a militant cell.
During their arrest, members of the Balata Brigade responded to the invasion by opening fire on the Israeli soldiers invading the camp, which, according to the Musheh boys’ uncle, forced the soldiers to cut short the abuse of the boys and hasten the army’s retreat.
On November 9, the army invaded Balata again. The purported target of the raid was Mohammad Abu Draa’ — going by the nomme de guerre Al-Zankaloni — who evaded capture. Palestinian resistance fighter Mahdi Hashash, only 15 years old, was killed in the raid after he was reported to have opened fire on the invading force. Hashash was nicknamed “the lion of the Balata Brigade,” reminiscent of the popular moniker of Ibrahim Al-Nabulsi, the iconic “Lion of Nablus.” Hashash’s funeral was reportedly attended by masked members of the Lions’ Den, who carried Hashash’s body on their shoulders before he was laid to rest.
The Balata Brigade, like the Lions’ Den (formerly the “Nablus Brigade”), is one of several such “brigades” to form across the West Bank since the start of 2022, initially as local offshoots of the Islamic Jihad’s Al-Quds Brigades, but quickly evolving to become cross-factional paramilitary formations. The Jenin Brigade is one of the most prominent examples of this cross-factional phenomenon. In an important feature on the rise of the Jenin Brigade, Mondoweiss Senior Palestine Correspondent Mariam Barghouti explains the evolution of the Jenin Brigade as an umbrella organization for the coordination of armed activities between several diverse armed groups:
Although the Brigade initially functioned as a Jenin branch of Saraya al-Quds (the Al-Quds Brigades, the PIJ’s armed wing), the Jenin Brigade has now evolved into a more complex and politically unaffiliated formation. It operates as an umbrella organization for a diverse set of armed groups, and the political and factional ideologies of the various fighters in the Brigade have taken a backseat to the immediate objective of protecting the camp and repelling Israeli incursions.
“Each faction operates on its own,” 43-year-old Abu Mujahed, the camp’s spokesperson for the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (Fatah’s armed wing) told Mondoweiss from a home that had harbored the two Palestinian escapees from the Gilboa Prison break, Munadel Nufeiat and Ayham Kamamji. “But when the army invades, we are all on the ground,” he said.
In addition to Hashash, two more Palestinians were killed by the Israeli army this week.
Rafat Al-Issa, a Palestinian worker who was shot dead on November 9 as he was crossing through an opening in the apartheid wall on his way to work, became known as “the martyr of daily bread.” The Palestinian human rights organization, Al-Haq, told Mondoweiss that it has documented three other similar incidents this year that ended in the killing of Palestinians passing through these breaches.
And just this morning, a Palestinian teenage girl was shot dead by Israeli soldiers as she was driving in a car in Beitunia, Ramallah. Israeli forces claimed they shot her and another male passenger under the pretext that she was carrying out a ramming attack, even though later camera footage revealed that her car was moving slowly as it happened upon Israeli soldiers who were raiding the area. The Palestinian Ministry of Health initially misidentified her as a 19-year-old woman of another name, but later confirmed her identity as 15-year-old Fulla Masalmeh, who was to turn 16 tomorrow.
All the while, decentralized Palestinian resistance operations continue, but no Israeli casualties or damages have been reported. According to the United Nations Department of Safety and Security’s daily Situation Report, three separate pipe-bomb throwings against Israeli military posts in the West Bank were recorded in the last 24 hours alone — near Beit Ummar, the Beit El settlement, and Nabi Saleh, while in the Jenin area armed fighters were reported to open fire at Israeli military targets outside of the village of Zababda and at the Jalameh military checkpoint. The Jenin Brigade also announced on its Telegram account that the “Qabatiya groups” of Saraya Al-Quds had managed to “target a military checkpoint and an occupation patrol unit on a street between [the villages of] Qabatiya and Sannour” in the Jenin governorate.
Important figures
- 189 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in 2022, 138 from the West Bank
Mondoweiss Highlights
Inside the “Wasps’ Nest”: the rise of the Jenin Brigade, by Mariam Barghouti
