With a show of force in Jenin, the PA tries to prove it can rule Gaza. But can it?
Ramallah is bent on regaining control of the northern West Bank and thereby improving its credentials to govern in postwar Gaza. But its legitimacy among Palestinians remains low
Gianluca Pacchiani is the Arab affairs reporter for The Times of Israel
In an ongoing operation against terror factions in Jenin, Palestinian Authority security forces killed Islamic Jihad commander Yazid Jaysa early Saturday morning, sparking clashes in the West Bank city, Palestinian media reported.
This was the second killing at the hands of PA security forces in Jenin within a week. Five days earlier, they gunned down a reportedly unarmed 19-year-old, Rahbi Shalabi, during gunfights with local operatives.
The operations were part of a larger PA crackdown against armed militias in Jenin, which the PA says is aimed at restoring security and stability to the area and comes as Ramallah appears to be trying to signal that it could play a significant role in managing a postwar Gaza Strip.
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.
The city has been a hotbed for terror groups in recent years, and the surrounding region in the northern section of the West Bank, which also includes the cities of Tubas, Tulkarem and Nablus, has progressively slipped out of the control of the PA and into the hands of local formations affiliated with Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.
Two weeks ago, armed men seized two official PA vehicles and paraded through the Jenin refugee camp waving flags of the Islamic Jihad group.
Jenin today… Hamas and Islamic Jihad have hijacked PA security vehicles and are patrolling the streets of the city in the middle of the day! This is how weak Abbas is. If he doesn't step down immediately and allow reforms, then instead of getting back the keys to Gaza from… pic.twitter.com/KNBB9PtsqM
— Samer Sinijlawiسامر السنجلاوي (@SSinijlawi) December 5, 2024
If the ongoing counter-terror campaign is successful and the PA manages to restore its control over the city, it is likely to attempt to repeat the feat in other parts of the West Bank, according to Michael Milshtein, head of the Forum for Palestinian Studies at the Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University.
If the PA can prove it can reassert its control over all the areas under its jurisdiction in the West Bank, it will be harder for Israel to oppose its return to rule the Gaza Strip — from which it was booted by Hamas in a bloody coup in 2007 — by claiming it is too weak to even govern the West Bank.
Milshtein said the timing of the PA’s operation in Jenin was not coincidental. While its security forces had been planning the crackdown for months, the recent fall of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad presumably played a role in determining when to launch it.
“There is no doubt that the drive to action was [caused by] events in Syria. People in the West Bank say that when one dictator [PA President Mahmoud Abbas] saw what happened to the other [Bashar al-Assad], he decided he would not follow the same fate,” Milshtein told The Times of Israel.
While support for Hamas in the West Bank is double that for Fatah (37% vs 18%, according to a September poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research), Fatah’s rule in Ramallah does not appear to be at risk, despite 14 months of a bloody war in Gaza and regional upheaval.
The main factor in the PA’s resilience is its security coordination with the IDF, experts told The Times of Israel.
“Despite the total political crisis, the security coordination with Israel is holding, not because the PA security forces are Zionists, but because they understand that without it, it may be the end of the PA – and Hamas will take advantage of their weakness. So it’s first of all in the PA’s interest,” Milshtein said.
“The moment the PA halts the security coordination with Israel will be the moment its death certificate is issued,” said Samer Sinijlawi, a Fatah member from East Jerusalem and a longtime opponent of Abbas’s rule.
Is the PA building its credentials to rule Gaza after the war?
While the Fatah-led government in Ramallah may make some progress in countering rival Palestinian factions in the West Bank, this does not automatically equip it to play a significant role in managing a postwar Gaza Strip.
“Gaza is an entirely different challenge,” said Milshtein.
Fourteen months into the conflict, there is no clear plan for governing the coastal enclave once the war ends. Earlier this month, representatives from Hamas and the Palestinian Authority’s Fatah party met in Cairo and agreed to create a committee to jointly oversee the administration of postwar Gaza.
Under the plan, the committee would be composed of 10-15 nonpartisan figures with authority on matters related to the economy, education, health, humanitarian aid, and reconstruction, according to a draft of the proposal seen by AFP.
It is unclear if Israel would agree to the deal being formulated. Israel rejects any role for Hamas in Gaza after the war the terror group started last year with its massacre of 1,200 people in southern Israel, and has also said it does not trust Abbas’s PA to run the enclave.
The two Palestinian factions have held multiple reconciliation meetings over the past months to end the years-long rift between them, the last one in Beijing in July, but the latest sit-down in Cairo appeared to have achieved more concrete results than previous summits, which ended in mere declaratory statements of unity.
This time around, both factions appear to be under greater pressure to reach a reconciliation – Hamas, because of its frailty after its military and civilian capabilities in Gaza were decimated, and the PA, because it wants to profit from an advantageous negotiating position.
“There is no final agreement between the two parties, but the PA wants to reach at least a symbolic settlement in Gaza, so as to be considered the most prominent player there,” said Milshtein. “Hamas aims for a cosmetic arrangement, which means that it wants the PA to occupy the positions of power in Gaza, but behind the scenes, it wants to remain the main player.”
The Egyptian mediators are currently attempting to bridge those two competing visions for Gaza, Milshtein said.
Israel has long opposed either faction returning to power in the Strip, but the incoming US presidency may hold surprises.
“[President-elect Donald] Trump is really unpredictable – he may push for annexation [by Israel of parts of the West Bank], but he may also push for a two-state solution,” said Sinijlawi, “especially if he is eyeing a Nobel Peace prize.”
Milshtein said that Israel may agree to a joint committee to run Gaza if it includes third parties, such as representatives from Gaza family clans (an arrangement that Israel has long favored but does not appear to have much traction on the ground) or representatives from the UN or Arab countries.
Fallout for the PA from the Jenin operations
Following the killing of the Islamic Jihad commander on Saturday, Brig. Gen. Anwar Rajab of the PA’s security forces told the official Palestinian news agency Wafa that his forces “thwarted a disaster in Jenin camp, by containing a booby-trapped vehicle prepared by outlaws.”
Rajab said that the vehicle “was supposed to be detonated among citizens and security personnel, as part of a cowardly criminal act that reflects an ISIS approach alien to our Palestinian values and morals and contradicts the course of our national struggle.”
For its part, Hamas condemned the PA for the Jenin operation and its ally the Palestinian Islamic Jihad called for a day of protests.
The two terror groups were not alone in viewing the crackdown critically. Fatah activist Sinijlawi said that as a Palestinian, he was concerned by the fact that the PA opened fire on its citizens, instead of arresting them and taking them before a court of law.
“It frightens me. Now I am afraid Abbas is trying to be the Assad of Palestine, showing that he can rule by firepower,” said Sinijlawi.
“What happened in Syria should teach Abbas a lesson, that his regime could collapse in a fraction of a minute. And it has all the ingredients to collapse. This is a time of economic crisis, political uncertainty, Palestinians are facing mass killings in Gaza and ‘pogroms’ in the West Bank,” Sinijlawi said, referencing frequent violent assaults by Israeli settlers against West Bank Arabs.
Pinpoint operations against rebel factions in Jenin will not be enough to restore the PA’s rule in the area, due to the sheer amount of weapons in the hands of local factions, and the regime’s fading legitimacy in the eyes of many Palestinians, the activist maintained.
“The PA has failed to meet the needs of Palestinians and respects their rights. They are viewed as corrupt, as a dictatorship. Without the endorsement of society, they will not be able to govern,” said Sinijlawi.
“The show of force in Jenin was mainly for the benefit of Israelis and Americans,” he added.
PA security officer resigns after Jenin teenager killed
A Palestinian Authority security officer has resigned after PA forces shot dead an unarmed 19-year-old in Jenin. The teenager, named as Ribhi Mohammad Shalabi, was filmed putting up his hands before he was hit with a volley… pic.twitter.com/aOZo8xSKdO
— Middle East Monitor (@MiddleEastMnt) December 10, 2024
“But it can backfire. Palestinians have never gone through a civil war. But the continuous use of force by the PA against these groups will force them to respond with more force,” said Sinijlawi. “The PA security forces will become the first target, before the Israelis.”
Last week, a video was widely circulated on social media showing a Palestinian security officer publicly announcing his resignation in Jenin over the killing of 19-year-old Rahbi Shalabi.
It is unclear whether Palestinian security forces, underpaid like most of Ramallah’s public sector employees and under pressure by their social environment to spare the lives of fellow Palestinians, will continue to support the PA indefinitely.
