On December 28, young journalism student Shatha Sabbagh left her home in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, with her mother and her sister’s two young children. A moment later she was shot in the head and killed by a sniper’s bullet. She was only 21 years old.
Shatha was killed in the same refugee camp as the veteran journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed by the Israeli regime in 2022. However, Shatha was not killed by an Israeli regime soldier. According to her family, the bullet that took her life was fired by the Palestinian Authority Security Forces (PASF).
For the past monthThe PASF laid siege to the Jenin refugee camp, in a coordinated effort with the Israelis, as part of its efforts to crush armed resistance in the northern West Bank.
While the Palestinian Authority (PA) managed to curb resistance to the Israeli occupation in many other urban centers through threats and oppression, there remain pockets in the north where armed resistance groups are still present. The city of Jenin, and especially its refugee camp, where both Shireen and Shatha were killed, is one such pocket. Because of this, the camp, which is home to more than 15,000 people, came to be seen as a symbol of resistance and steadfastness and largely a thorn in the side of the PASF.
Indeed, the very existence of the PA depends on suppressing such resistance to the Israeli regime in all areas under its purported control. As such, it continuously coordinates its actions with the Israeli military and uses oppressive tactics that are often indistinguishable from theirs. In fact, the PASF could easily be mistaken for the Israeli army, if it weren’t for their different uniforms.
And while the Israelis continue their genocide in Gaza, the PASF has embarked on its own full-scale act of aggression against Jenin. They laid a merciless siege on the refugee camp, turned off water and electricity and prohibited the entry of the most basic necessities. The PASF also placed snipers on rooftops and set up checkpoints in the streets, to restrict the movement of resistance fighters.
There are also reports of beatings, arrests and torture. A team from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society testified that they were detained, beaten and interrogated for two and a half days while trying to deliver medicine to besieged families.
ua video tour on Palestinian social media, two men are forced to stand on one leg and recite “President Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] is God” over and over again. In another video, PASF members beat a young man senselessly, apparently for criticizing the PA’s siege of the Jenin refugee camp. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many use the word “shabiha” to describe the PASF – a term commonly used for forces and groups loyal to former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Residents of the camp took to the streets in protest and called on the PA to stop its brutal attack and end the bloodshed between the relatives. But these calls were ignored. Instead, the PASF insisted that the resistance fighters either surrender their weapons or leave the camp, both of which they categorically refused to do. How this will play out remains to be seen, but what is certain is that more Palestinian blood will be spilled before it ends.
For the PA leadership, the Jenin operation is part of a much bigger picture – one that allows it to position itself as the body that will take over Gaza after the ceasefire. The logic is that if the PA can prove it can suppress and even eliminate armed resistance in the West Bank, Israel and the United States will facilitate its installation in Gaza. However, while The Biden administration has indicated to support the takeover of the PA, Netanyahu’s government did not give such indications and, on the contrary, categorically stated that it would reject such a scenario. Regardless, the PA leadership continues to play its role as domestic enforcer in the hope of getting more scraps from the master’s table.
As if to prove its guilt and pour more salt on the wound, the PA recently announced its decision to suspend Al Jazeera’s operations in the occupied West Bank, as punishment for its coverage of Jenin. The PA follows in the footsteps of the Israeli government, which also banned the media network in May 2024, in direct response to its coverage of the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
While the betrayal and security coordination of the PA leadership with the Israeli regime is nothing new, its ongoing siege of Jenin has raised the betrayal of the Palestinian people to a whole new level. His casual shedding of civilian blood, shabiha-style beatings and torture show that he is more than willing to cross red lines that the Palestinian people are unlikely to ever forget or forgive. None of this bodes well for the longevity of a leadership that is already suffering from a crisis of legitimacy due to its failure to take a meaningful stand against the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
