The attack caused outrage in the West Bank

Shata Sabagh, a journalism student in her early 20s from Jenin in the occupied West Bank, was returning home from buying sweets with her mother and three other relatives when gunfire erupted.

The team dives into the ground, but time is running out for Shatta. “She was staring at me with her eyes wide open, her voice starting to break,” said her mother, Nahd Sabagh. “Then I saw something come out of her head. And in that moment, I realized that I had lost my daughter.

In recent years, the refugee camp in Jenin where Shatta was shot – a warren of narrow streets, a stronghold of Palestinian militant groups in the West Bank – has repeatedly been the target of deadly and devastating attacks by Israeli security forces. .

But Shatta’s death in late December comes amid a highly unusual move: Palestinian Authority security forces have imposed some autonomy in parts of the West Bank in a crackdown on the camp’s militants.

Palestinian officials say the operation – now in its sixth week, and the largest PA operation in its 30-year existence – is designed to restore law and order in the “lawless” camp, which has long existed. Control of PA.

The operation has been widely interpreted as an attempt by the PA to demonstrate to the international community that it is capable of playing a role in governing Gaza after the end of the war between Israel and Hamas – an idea opposed by the US, Arab and European governments, but strongly opposed by the Israeli government.

Israel and Hamas this week finally reached a multilateral deal to end a 15-month war and free hostages still being held in Gaza. But it is unclear whether the war is over permanently, with far-right ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government calling for Israel to resume fighting.

“The PA wants to show . . . that anyone who thinks that they can make rules and laws, and that they can play a role not only in the West Bank, but also in Gaza,” said Jenin political analyst Adnan Alsabah.

But her mother blames the PA for killing civilians like Shatta and the PA against militants has fueled anger and undermined the PA’s dwindling ranks. Founded as a stepping stone to a Palestinian state, it is now seen by many Palestinians as a facilitator of the Israeli occupation.

“The people in the camp had one enemy. Now they have two,” Sabag said. “(Israel) and the PA – they are two sides of the same coin.”

The PA operation began in December when militants seized two PA vehicles, arrested two Islamic Jihad militants and drove around the camp by firing shots at municipal buildings. Since then, PA forces have arrested dozens of militants, defused improvised explosive devices and seized large quantities of weapons and ammunition, he said.

But the situation in Jenin is changing. Approaches to the camp were blocked by PA vehicles and checkpoints when the Financial Times visited. There have been repeated shootings, including one that killed a 50-year-old woman.

Brigadier General Anwar Rajab, spokesman for the PA security forces, said that this operation, in addition to restoring law and order, is intended to prevent the Israeli government from launching a major attack on its territory by militants.

Netanyahu’s government, considered the most accurate in Israel’s history, was supported by ministers determined to annex the West Bank and emboldened by the re-election of Donald Trump.

“We don’t want an all-out conflict with Israel,” Rajab said. “We are the losers in this conflict. We don’t want to let anyone drag us there.”

But others argue that considering the recent operation of the PA, Rajab said that “a couple of hundred” soldiers were involved, as far less calculations, and left the authorities in a dilemma.

“The PA can’t afford to hit the camp with massive force because if they do, a lot of people will be hurt and support will fall off the cliff, and that could lead to violence in other parts of the West,” said Ibrahim Dalalsha, director of the Ramallah-based Horizon Center for Political Studies.

But having sent all those troops, if the PA now pulls back, it will fail not only in the eyes of its international and regional allies, but also in domestic politics.

Currently, both sides seem to be relatively restrained in Jenin.

In the past six weeks, the fighting has claimed the lives of six members of the Palestinian security services and nine others. The PA said three were militants, but only one was armed, according to the UN.

In contrast, Palestinian officials said last year’s massive Israeli campaign in Jenin killed 21 people in nine days. Israel said it killed 14 militants at the time. Twelve people were killed in two Israeli drone strikes in Jenin this week. According to the latest United Nations data, Israeli forces have killed 795 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, which was triggered by a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

But while the death toll from the PA operation is relatively low, the fact that Palestinians continue to fight each other – despite the Israeli military’s brutal assault on Gaza – has sparked widespread soul-searching.

“What is happening in Jenin is a black page in Palestinian history,” said Alsabah. “It is showing the world that we are not a consensus, that we do not have one platform, that we do not share the same vision.

As the operation progressed, public pressure forced it to stop. Community leaders in both Jenin and Ramallah appealed to the PA and its militants to end the conflict, calling for additional calls to announce Israeli drone strikes and a cease-fire in Gaza. On Friday, efforts were underway to mediate the rift.

“The state of Jenin does not defeat PA military power. It has more than 30,000 security forces. It has guns and money to control. And it has international and regional support,” Dalalsha said.

“Pa’s problem is that even before this operation, his standing with the public has been lost. And the situation in Jenin has made him even weaker.

Cartography and Data Visualization by Aditi Bhandari and Chris Campbell