The Palestinian administration made one of the most important extensive security operations In its history, following armed militants in The city of Jenina on the west coast. For weeks, the power of power has slowly progressed in the densely populated stronghold of militants, Palestinian officials said.
When the Israeli army launched its wide -scale raid There, in January, it was expected that the authorities would leave their work.
But not.
Instead, when dozens of militants fled to nearby villages, Palestinian security forces flew into them to arrest them, the officials said. “We made a very important progress in strengthening the order and order,” Brig. General Anwar Rajab, a spokesman for the government security forces, said in a telephone conversation.
The authorities, which limited the management of powers on the west coast for years, have largely ceded the fight against Israel’s militants. But as the questions are turning to whether to take over management and safety in Gaza, the group leaders seem eager to show that they will not be ashamed of fighting – even if that means anger of Palestinians saying that the government supports surgery that destroys large parts of the West Coast and displacement of tens of thousands.
Jenin, and especially in the Jenin camp, a prostated neighborhood built for refugees in After the Israeli-Arab War 1948.became a shelter for armed fighters supporting Iran from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Over the years they have become more sophisticated in their ability to develop explosives and get advanced weapons, such as Rifles M16 smuggled from Israel.
From October 7, 2023, when Hamas led an attack on Israel that began the war in Gaza, Israel made a multitude of raids on the west coast, including air attacks, killing many civilians. Israel says that this is carried out by these raids in accordance with international law. The authorities generally avoid direct conflict with militants, trying to encourage them to turn.
But in December, the government decided to take more powerful measures. Security forces arrested operating Islamic jihad as tens of thousands of dollars smuggled on the West Coast, according to Palestinian officials.
The New York Times spoke with a dozen Palestinian officials about operations in Jenin. Everyone spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions and operational plans.
The militants responded by aggravating two government trucks and paradding through the city, in a scene caught on a video and widely shared on social networks. The episode was a sharp representation of the weakness of the government: it was in a wide daylight, and the trucks were draped in the flags of Islamic Jihad and Hamas.
The leader of the government, Mahmoud Abbas, was so angry that he felt he had to act immediately after seeing the video, according to Palestinian officials.
The authorities arranged elite forces and armored vehicles; He was setting up checkpoints and dealt with daily battles with weapons with militants at the camp. More than a dozen people were killed, including six security officers, journalists, women and three teenagers. He also led to the movement of thousands and widespread losses of water and strength.
Hundreds of people were arrested, General Rajab said at a press conference in January, although it was not clear how many people were.
The authority was cautious in the urgent moves to militants, cautiously that could lead to a large number of civilian deaths, according to officials. After a few weeks in which the authorities fought for progress in his work, Israel made a raid of Jenin.
It was widely assumed that the surgery would end, but Palestinian safety bosses remained in Jenin, directing intelligence surgery in nearby villages, some of Palestinian officials said. The bosses recently withdrew to Ramallah, the administrative headquarters of the government, but arrest surgery continued around Jenin, the officials said.
In the days after Israel was attacking the city, the security forces of the government arrested 120 attackers who left the camp, General Rajab said on Wednesday.
To what extent, the authorities and Israel coordinated in this operation is unclear. Both sides shared information for a long time and worked to avoid running into each other, several Palestinian officials said, a policy that many Palestinians criticized.
General Rajab would only say that the government in Jenin did “what was to be done.” On the eve of the Palestinian criticism, the government announced that many militants had a criminal background.
Lieutenant Nada Shoshani, a spokesman for the Israeli army, said at the briefing for the news in January that Israel and authority held the conflict’s removal protocols “to make sure we were not entering each other,” but did not go into detail how it worked in Jenin.
The recent surgery of Israel has caused some of the most difficult damage to the years, breaking the roads, breaking dozens of buildings and killing more than 25 people in the wider Jenin area, according to the Ministry of Health of Administration, which does not distinguish civilians and fighters. Israel Katz, Israeli Minister of Defense, vowed that the army would remain there in the long run, raising an alarm among the officials of authority.
The Israeli army announced that he killed dozens of militants in several cities on the northern west coast.
The government refused to deviate from its work in Jenin, claiming that it had to take every opportunity to obey militants, which he accused of utting Israel to destroy the city.
This hardly raised its position among the inhabitants of the western coast, which sees it widely as a corrupt entity that is shown with Israel. Many Palestinians also see armed groups in Jenin as a fight against them against the forces occupied by the West Coast.
“These are two sides of the same coin,” said Shadi Abu Samen, 47, a resident of the Jenin camp, referring to Israel and authority.
In telephone conversations with the New York Times, the militants at Jenin’s Brigade of Islamic Jihad said they had taken their weapons to face Israeli soldiers who executed their neighborhood. Abu Mohammed, a member of the Brigade, said he believed that the authorities and Israel followed a similar goal: “To eradicate resistance and his spirit.”
“They want to surrender, but we won’t accept it,” said Abu Mohammed, 33, using his Nom de Guerre.
The Times spoke with Abu Mohammed before the last surgery of Israel in Jenin and has not been able to reach him ever since.
Some Palestinian analysts have said that the focus on security will not be enough that neither Israel nor Israel have tried to improve the living conditions.
“We’re talking about a place that lacks so many basic resources,” said Ibrahim Dalalsha, director of the Horizon Center, Palestinian research groups in Ramallah. “Every security surgery should be monitored by social, economic, developmental operations.”
Civilians paid a clear price for surgery. Almost all residents of the Jenin camp have been displaced in the last two months, according to the United Nations.
“We live through a violent storm,” said Hilal Jalamneh, 50, a resident of the camp. “The last part of the hope we held now is gone.”
