PA struggles to secure restive Jenin as terrorists vow to keep their arms

The Palestinian Authority is reportedly struggling to assert control over its terror hub in Jenin, located in the northern West Bank.

Growing tensions between the PA and local militants come a month after Israel concluded its largest counter-terrorism operation in two decades in the Jenin area.

The tensions are part of a wider power struggle between the Palestinian Authority, run by the Fatah party, and its rival Hamas.

The Hamas terror organization, which controls the Gaza Strip, is also trying to undermine the PA’s rule in the West Bank.

The head of PA police in Jenin, Brig.-Gen. Azzam Jebara, recently compared the growing West Bank tensions to the violent Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007.

“The horrible events of that night reminded us of the lead-up to the Hamas coup in Gaza,” commented Jebara on a recent attack on a local PA police station. “It was a warning,” he added.

Ibrahim Abahre, the deputy head of the PA’s Preventive Security in Jenin, warned that the combustible situation could become more even dangerous in the event of an Israeli military incursion.

“If we think we’re establishing control now, we’re not fooling ourselves,” said Abahre. “At any moment, the Israeli army could enter and everything could explode.”

An unnamed Israeli military official admitted that Israel tried to keep out of the internal power struggles of rival Arab factions.

“There is a line drawn as to how many Israelis can be killed while the Palestinians work out their internal struggles,” said the Israeli official on condition of anonymity. “At some point, we just have to go in,” the official added.

The Jewish state and the Palestinian Authority have a complex security relationship.

While ties between Jerusalem and Ramallah are tense, both sides have an interest in preventing Hamas and other Iranian-backed terror groups from taking over the West Bank, also known as Judea and Samaria.

Jenin’s acting governor, Kamal Abu al-Rub, criticized Israeli military incursions.

“They want to embarrass us,” he said. At the same time, the PA President Mahmoud Abbas appears unwilling or unable to take firm actions against the growing local terror threat.

In an apparent attempt to appease local sentiments, the PA announced in July that it would not disarm or arrest Jenin-based terrorists. In addition, the Abbas' regime praised the terrorist attacks against the Jewish state and Israeli citizens.

“We will impose law and order. We didn’t arrest anyone from Jenin Refugee Camp. The only people who were arrested are those who attacked the police station in Jaba’. All those who attacked the station will be arrested and held accountable,” said Akram Rajoub, the former governor in Jenin.

He added that Ramallah “holds in high esteem anyone who carries weapons and resists the occupation.”

Meanwhile, the Jenin Battalion, consisting of local Iranian-supported Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists, vowed to resist any attempt to disarm them.

“We will absolutely not allow anyone, whoever it is, to take the weapons of the resistance away from us,” announced the group in an official statement on Friday.

Senior PIJ official, Saeed Nakhleh, a claimed the terror group had delivered “several fiery messages to the Israeli occupation, first and foremost that attempts to eliminate the resistance fighters will fail.”

Nakhleh, a political rival of Abbas, claimed the local terror group in Jenin would avoid attacking PA forces “to avoid schism in the societal fabric.”

“Although the security forces of the Palestinian Authority are chasing and arresting the resistance fighters on orders from the occupation and the US, our rifles will remain directed only toward the Zionist enemy. The day will come when the members of the security forces will realize that what they did against the mujahidin (warriors) was not right,” he added.