Friday, 17 January 2025, will be remembered for a ceasefire deal struck between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip, facilitating a major hostage-prisoner swap. Yet, on the same day, another agreement was reached between Palestinian factions in Jenin.
One faction was the forces of the Palestinian Authority (PA), based in Ramallah; the other was the Jenin Battalion. Both are based in the occupied West Bank, and both had been fighting for about six weeks for control of Jenin’s huge refugee camp.
After heavy clashes, the PA announced that it had regained full control over the camp and arrested dozens of members of the Jenin Battalion—a loosely organised armed resistance group which, unlike the PA, enjoys significant popular support. That is because it has actively resisted Israeli military incursions and defended both the camp and the city of Jenin against weekly Israeli offensives.
Battalion members had refused to surrender their weapons or relinquish authority in the camp to PA security forces, who work with the Israelis to “enforce stability” across the West Bank.
The PA saw this fight against the Battalion as critical to its survival and its ability to maintain order, as per its obligations under the Oslo Accords and the security arrangements established with Israel since the PA’s formation in 1994.
A Palestinian tragedy
For years, the Jenin Battalion has fought Israeli forces around the city, the latter having imposed blockades on the camp and targeted activists, killing dozens in the process. Despite this, Israel was unable to assert full control over Jenin, forcing the PA to intervene and dismantle the resistance cells.
But on 2 February, Israeli forces took matters into their own hands by simultaneously blowing up 20 homes in the Jenin refugee camp. The Israeli military claimed the homes were part of a “terror infrastructure” without providing evidence. The attack came just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was heading to Washington to meet with US President Donald Trump, who has suggested Egypt and Jordan absorb Palestinians into their respective countries.
At least 14,000 people live in the poverty-ridden refugee camp, nearly all of whom are descendants of Palestinians kicked off their land and homes when Israel was created in 1948.
The attack came after two weeks of Israeli raids and siege on the camp amid broader moves in the occupied West Bank, where it has set up multiple roadblocks and other checkpoints and killed at least 27 Palestinians. For its part, Hamas condemned the attack, which it says "will only embolden resistance efforts to challenge the criminal actions of the (Israeli) occupiers."
The Palestinian foreign ministry also condemned the attack. “We call on the international community to urgently intervene to stop the crimes of the occupation and its settlers against our citizens,” it said in an official statement.
But the words will do little to allay Palestinian anger, who increasingly view the PA as collaborators and ask why it would besiege and attack other Palestinians—especially at a time when Israel has killed tens of thousands in Gaza.
In part, this can be explained tactically: the PA in Ramallah is increasingly aware that it is severely criticised by Palestinians throughout its territories—not just over its governance but also its handling of relations with Israel, particularly concerning Israeli settlers' activities in Areas B and C.
This discontent was further exacerbated by Israeli incursions into Area A, which is designated as being under full Palestinian control. That discontent only grew at the PA's reaction to Israel's devastating war on Gaza since October 2023, which the International Court of Justice has ruled to be a 'plausible genocide'. The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the PA are now widely seen as having abandoned the role of defending Palestinians—especially those in Gaza.
Protection from settlers
Settlers, with backing from the Israeli army, have carried out large-scale operations against Palestinians in the West Bank since October 2023, including the mass displacement of Palestinians from Masafer Yatta near Hebron, Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley, and northern regions of the West Bank. This even extended to settlers laying siege to Palestinian cities, villages, and refugee camps.
Israeli forces assisted, burning crops and olive groves and targeting civilians in their homes and neighbourhoods. Refugee camps in Tulkarm, Qalqilya, Nablus, Jenin, and Bethlehem have been repeatedly attacked, with warplanes occasionally deployed.
Most Palestinians no longer believe that peace with Israel is a viable pathway to an independent state. Occasional armed attacks against Israeli targets are not merely reactions to the war on Gaza. They reflect deeper underlying frustrations that their quest for statehood is proving increasingly fruitless.
After October 2023, there is now a strong belief that Israel has definitively closed the door on any peaceful resolution. Israel's approach appears aimed at reducing Palestinians to a state of permanent subjugation while keeping the PA in power, albeit in a weakened state. Israel simply wants the PA to do its security work.
At the head of the PA sits 89-year-old Mahmoud Abbas, who, in September 1993, alongside Yasser Arafat, signed the Declaration of Principles on behalf of Palestinians at the White House. He succeeded Arafat as head of the PA and the PLO Executive Committee in 2004, continuing to promise that a Palestinian state is inevitable.
Palestinians have lost faith in these assurances. Palestinians kicked the PA out of Gaza in 2007, and many in the West Bank now think Abbas and the PA peddle empty promises, concerned only about preserving their own authority rather than advancing the Palestinian cause.
