Amid PA crackdown in Jenin, videos seem to show gunmen acknowledging ties to Iran

Unverified videos circulating on social media show Palestinian gunmen in Jenin acknowledging their connections to the Islamic Republic of Iran and its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and pledging their commitment to Tehran’s objective of exporting the Islamic Revolution.

“From here, from Palestine, from the Jenin Battalion, from the free and honorable people of Palestine, we send our greetings to the Islamic Republic of Iran, to Imam Ali Khamenei, and we will soon establish the state of the Imam Mahdi,” a masked gunman says in one of the videos.

That figure is mostly revered in the Shiite Islam that is practiced in Iran, and is less relevant to the Sunni Islam practiced in the Palestinian territories, raising questions about the authenticity of the videos, with some critics of the PA claiming that the clips have been fabricated by the PA as part of its propaganda against rival factions.

313 by itself refers to the 313 men in Shia Twelvers belief that will rise to fight alongside elMahdi upon his reappearance –
There was a compilation video of their irgc supporting statements by YaffaNews, am attaching here: pic.twitter.com/ORxY7HZOFK

— Mo Ghaoui (@moghaoui) December 16, 2024

Over the past days, Palestinian Authority security forces have been engaged in a crackdown on terror groups in Jenin, and on Saturday killed the local leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Yazid Jaysa.

On Sunday, the US reportedly asked Israel to approve the urgent delivery of military assistance to the PA as it attempts to restore order in Jenin. Some have viewed the PA’s ongoing crackdown on armed factions in Jenin as an attempt by Ramallah to prove it can assert military control over West Bank territories under its jurisdiction, in preparation for a role it seeks to play in the future governance of the Gaza Strip.

Since at least 2022, Iran has inundated the West Bank with arms, smuggling them across the border from Jordan to foment unrest with Israel, according to a report published in April by The New York Times.

The Islamic Republic has long provided financial support to Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups as part of its Axis of Resistance against Israel, which has suffered heavy blows after the decimation of the military capabilities of Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon and the fall of the Iran-backed Assad regime in Syria.