The Palestinian Authority suppresses criticism of the Jenin operation in the West Bank News about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Beirut, Lebanon – The Palestinian Authority’s (PA) ban on Al Jazeera is part of a broader effort to silence criticism of its security operation in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, according to activists and analysts.

The ban came nearly a month after the PA launched an operation to crush a coalition of armed groups calling themselves the Jenin Brigades.

The the groups are affiliated with Palestinian factions such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and even Fatah, the party that controls the PA.

Since the beginning of December, The PA surrounded the Jenin camp and cut off water and electricity to most residents in an alleged attempt to restore “law and order” in the West Bank.

However, his indiscriminate tactics in Jenin coincide with a wider attack on free speech, activists and rights groups told Al Jazeera.

Repression and censorship

Activists and rights groups said dozens of people were summoned and questioned – some beaten – for social media posts opposing the PA operation in Jenin, although prominent Palestinian figures were still able to write critical posts about the security operation.

Most of those arrested were released, but some were forced to upload apology videos, according to rights groups.

Sanad, Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency, has reviewed and verified three apology videos that have been circulating online.

“There is tension around the PA operation and people don’t feel safe talking about it or sharing with us what happened to them when they were detained,” said Murad Jadallah, an activist with Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights group in the West Bank.

The The PA was born out of the Oslo Accords between Palestinian and Israeli leaders in 1993. Mandated that the PA recognize Israel and eliminate Palestinian armed groups in exchange for a Palestinian state alongside Israel by 1999.

Israel, however, has used the past 30 years to expand illegal settlements on large swaths of stolen Palestinian land, nearly tripling the number of settlers in the occupied West Bank.

As the occupying power, it still controls most aspects of Palestinian life and frequently carries out raids, killings and arrests in the West Bank, even in areas where the PA is supposed to have full control.

Despite diminished hopes for statehood, the PA has stuck to its mandate under the Oslo accords, leading many Palestinians to charge that the administration is effectively collaborating with Israel to maintain the occupation.

Over the years, the PA has also escalated repression against Palestinian opponents and dissidents. In 2021, PA arrested critic and activist Nizar Banatwho died in custody.

According to Amnesty International, the PA failed to adequately investigate his death.

Most recently, on December 28, a sniper killed Shatha al-Sabbagh, a journalist who spoke to camp residents about a security operation.

Her family blamed PA forces, but the PA denied responsibility and blamed “outlaws” for her death.

Four days later, the PA banned Al Jazeera – believed to be the most popular media network in the occupied West Bank.

“If this decision is implemented, it means that Al Jazeera… will not be able to monitor what it monitors and documents today,” said Munir Nuseibah, a political analyst at the Palestinian think tank Al-Shabak.

“This will affect the Palestinian cause as a whole. Al Jazeera … reports to the world about Palestine,” he told Al Jazeera.

“The way the Palestinian Authority is dealing with the situation right now is that there is only one truth and that truth is their narrative,” Al-Haqov Jadallah said.

Disinformation

Some PA officials have argued that the armed groups in the Jenin camp are part of a wider plot backed by Iran or “extremist renegades” aimed at undermining the Palestinian quest for statehood.

According to Ahmed Mohamed*, an activist who monitors digital freedoms in the Palestinian territory, the PA’s rhetoric aims to link the Jenin Brigades to a foreign conspiracy to discredit them as a legitimate resistance against Israeli occupation.

“This is a repetition of Israeli propaganda … which claims that the Palestinians are not acting of their own free will, but on instructions from Iran and that Iran is the big bogeyman,” Mohamed said.

“There is merit in Iran supporting resistance activities in Palestine and repressive regimes elsewhere, but the PA is trying to claim that they are the ones who have the Palestinians in mind and have a pro-Palestinian policy,” he added.

Iran has traditionally provided financial and military aid to Hamas and the PIJ—two factions that loosely form the Jenin Brigades—as part of its broader policy of challenging Israeli and American hegemony in the region.

However, Hamas and the PIJ are not puppets and remain entrenched in their quest to resist the Israeli occupation, according to a report by the European Council on Foreign Relations, a UK-based think tank.

Meanwhile, the main donors to the PA are the United States and Europe, whose positions are often at odds with broader Palestinian aspirations and views.

Social media platforms believed to be close to the PA shared one video showing four men wearing white pants, white tunics and ill-fitting white hoods over their heads. The men also appear to be carrying explosive packages on their torsos and claim they will blow themselves up if PA security forces enter the Jenin camp.

Some of these PA-linked sites claim the men belong to an “extremist” battalion called 313, which is also the name of a unit fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Sanad said the video was never uploaded to any social media site linked to the Jenin Brigades and “seems to have been created to mislead the public”.

“There is no battalion with the official name of the 313th battalion [in Jenin]”, revealed Sanad.

Coercion and intimidation

The head of a leading human rights group in the West Bank, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, said the PA also forced civil servants to participate in protests supporting the Jenin operation.

“[Civil servants] they risk being penalized if they are considered absent [at these pro-PA protests]”, the source told Al Jazeera.

“They could face administrative penalties or be called up by PA security forces.”

Al Jazeera has obtained a copy of an official government letter that appears to confirm that claim.

The letter was addressed to the mayor of Masafer Yatta in Hebron and requested that certain employees not be punished for not showing up to protests on behalf of the PA on December 24.

As such, the letter indicates that employees would typically be penalized if they missed PA demonstrations.

Jadallah, of Al-Haq, added that PA security forces often confiscate the phones of people they interrogate and replace their critical social media posts with posts glorifying the PA and its operations in Jenin.

Palestinian security forces have warned the prisoners not to delete new posts after they are released, he said.

The human rights leader also claimed that the PA is instrumentalizing cybercrime laws – and anti-incitement laws – to justify a crackdown on free speech.

In 2017, the PA passed – by decree – a law on cybercrime that allowed authorities to arrest people for “inciting hatred” on social media and for “disturbing public order”.

Critics of the cyber law argued that the laws, which were broadly worded, could be misused by the PA to enhance cyber surveillance and stifle dissent – a longstanding practice of the Israeli occupation.

“The laws are being applied to suppress any criticism of the Jenin operation, especially harsh criticism,” the source said.

“If anyone shows open support for the Jenin brigades… then they risk being called.”