Fatah forms village patrols to defend against settler violence

Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement is encouraging the creation of civil defense groups in Palestinian villages across the West Bank, aimed at protecting communities against settler violence.

Ghassan Daghlas, head of the settlement portfolio in the northern West Bank for the Palestinian Authority, told The Times of Israel that the idea of recruiting villagers to protect their communities around the clock arose four years ago when the village of Qusra was attacked by settlers. In January 2014, residents of Qusra apprehended a group of settlers en route to carry out a suspected price tag attack. The settlers were surrounded and beaten before being handed over to the Israeli army.

“Today, following repeated attacks by settlers, there has to be protection for these villages from the residents themselves,” Daghlas said. “The decision came down from the leadership of Fatah and the PLO.”

The attack on the Dawabsha family in Duma, a village subject to Israeli security control, has embarrassed the Palestinian Authority. While renouncing the armed struggle against Israel as immoral and counterproductive, PA President Mahmoud Abbas now appears more helpless than ever in safeguarding villagers from sporadic Jewish attacks on property or civilians.

Abbas condemned the attack as terrorism, claiming it was the result of the Israeli government’s settlement policy.

“The Palestinian leadership will seek protection for our people from the United Nations, and will send this crime’s case to the International Criminal Court,” he said.

Jamal Jaradat, Fatah secretary of the Jenin province in the northern West Bank, told his movement’s website that villages located in proximity to Jewish settlements have began to organize in groups to prevent attacks similar to that which took place in Duma last week, killing 18-month-old Ali Dawabsha and the seriously injuring three family members.

“It is the right of our people, living under occupation, to defend their land and themselves with all possible means,” he said. “The settlers should know that Fatah and other PLO organizations are able to protect our people in all situations and locations.”

Daghlas, the PA official, said that the village patrols will be unarmed and operate according to a model of civil defense adopted during the First Intifada.

“Every village will keep 20-30 [men] awake at night, the mosque loudspeaker will remain on, and if they see something wrong they’ll sound a warning,” he said.

“If we were to use weapons, the [Israeli] army would come in,” he said.

A reporter for Palestinian news website al-Hadath joined a group of villagers from Qusra this week on a night patrol, armed with “a club, a cellphone and a flashlight.”

“Now we will thwart any attack by settlers,” Akram Taisir, a local father of seven, told the website. “They are cowards, attacking homes stealthily, as well as weak families and abandoned houses. They uproot trees and burn cars.”