The protest was the latest in a number of anti-PA demonstrations by Palestinians in Jenin in recent weeks, marking yet another fissure in the deepening rift between Palestinians and the PA.
The Jenin Brigade has condemned the Palestinian Authority’s continued arrest of resistance fighters. As tensions rise, the camp enters the most dangerous phase of the counterinsurgency effort to eradicate it.
On Thursday, Israeli forces invaded Jenin refugee camp and killed nine Palestinians in what residents of the camp called “a massacre.” On Friday, Palestinians responded with protest and resistance that culminated in armed resistance operations being carried out across the West Bank, including in the Israeli settlement of Neve Yaakov in occupied East Jerusalem, where at least seven Israelis were killed.
The West Bank and Jerusalem are “on fire.”
It’s a term we’re seeing used more and more across social media, the news, and opinion pieces talking about the current events in the occupied Palestinian territory. But what exactly is unfolding in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem right now, and why? What makes it different from what we’ve seen in recent history, and what does it mean for the future of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation and settler-colonialism?
A recent debate over the rank of the U.S. Security Coordinator for the Palestinian Authority has refocused attention on security cooperation with Israel and the question of who it truly benefits.
The cash-strapped Palestinian Authority (PA) finally accepted over $1 billion in tax revenues, transferred by Israel on Tuesday. While Israel has refused to release the tax revenues in the past, the PA itself had been refusing to accept the money since May of this year, in protest of Israel’s annexation plans and US President Donald Trump’s “deal of the century.”
PA officials announced on Tuesday that they received assurances that Israel was “committed” to upholding its end of agreements with the Palestinians, and that the decision to resume coordination was made following “international talks” being conducted by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. There is speculation that the impending change in U.S. administrations, along with the severe financial pressure the Palestinian Authority finds itself under, is what motivated Palestinian leadership to resume relations with Israel.
“The Palestinian Authority, a historically toothless government operating within the confines of Israeli control and authority in the entirety of historic Palestine, may not be long for the world,” writes Luke Peterson, “But change may well be in the air as regards the stultified and ineffective government. Public confidence in the integrity and efficacy of the Palestinian Authority amongst the Palestinians in the West Bank is at an all-time low and faith in the ability (or even desire) of PA officials to steer Palestine into an improved economic and political future is all but nonexistent. Years of bureaucratic bloat, nepotistic policy, and corruption have turned Palestinians against their elected leadership. Harsh crackdowns on free speech (to include the policing of social media sites), the enrichment of the elites at the expense of the public good, and complicity in Israeli occupation policies are to blame. As a result, references to ‘Palestinian Democracy’ are laughed off by the public at large.”
Shop windows in Ramallah were shuttered yesterday within hours of Minister Ziad Abu Ein’s death from a heart attack following an assault by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank village of Turmusaya. Thousands poured through the streets during a state funeral held today with a ceremony at the Muqataa, the seat of the Palestinian Authority and a procession to a nearby cemetery.