[News] Inside The 'Wasps’ Nest': The Rise Of The Jenin Brigade

[Anti-Imperialist News]

popularresistance.org
<https://popularresistance.org/inside-the-wasps-nest-the-rise-of-the-jenin-brigade/>
Inside The 'Wasps’ Nest': The Rise Of The Jenin Brigade
By Mariam Barghouti, Mondoweiss.- November 12, 2022
------------------------------
[image: image.png]

Above Photo: Palestinian militants from the Jenin Brigade take part in a
press conference, in Jenin refugee camp on March 1, 2022. Ahmed Ibrahim /
APA Images.
Jenin refugee camp has been turned into a “liberated area” by armed
resistance factions.

*Now the resistance hopes the Jenin model will spread to other parts of the
West Bank.*

“Look, we are defending ourselves,” he says, in a voice both clear and
firm, apparently anticipating the question. “I first became wanted [by
Israel] two years ago,” he tells *Mondoweiss.*

Pistol always on hand, his stature is imposing, his gait upright. Abu
Daboor, 28, stands at the entrance of Jenin refugee camp. The brown flesh
of his hands contrasts with his black top and dark sweatpants. Behind him,
past the roundabout and through the barricades at the entrance of Jenin
Refugee camp, a clumsy graffiti reads, “the wasps’ nest welcomes you.”

Established in 1953, the 0.42 square kilometers comprising the camp is home
to almost 12,000 Palestinians, many of whom are originally from areas
near Haifa
and Nazareth
<https://www.unrwa.org/sites/default/files/jenin_refugee_camp.pdf>, north
of historic Palestine.

Jenin refugee camp is widely known among the Israeli security apparatus as
“the wasp’s nest,” a term that with the start of the year has been
re-popularized, especially during the first months of the ongoing
Israeli military
onslaught <https://mondoweiss.net/tag/operation-break-the-wave/> on
bastions of Palestinian resistance.

It is almost 3:00 a.m., and the watchmen of the camp are patrolling the
streets nearby, ready to protect the camp from Israeli invasions. Despite
the late hour, the men are alert to any unfamiliar face, fearing they may
potentially be undercover Israeli special forces on an assassination
mission. This year, more than 16 resistance fighters have been targeted and
assassinated in Jenin alone, the result of a return to the decades-old
Israeli policy of “liquidation
<https://mondoweiss.net/2022/10/four-youth-killed-in-the-last-24-hours-amidst-ongoing-israeli-wave-of-extra-judicial-assassinations/>
”.
Cooperation Of The Armed Factions In Jenin

“This is the first time I have seen such targeted attacks,” Yara Eid, a
student and activist that reported from Gaza during Operation Breaking
Dawn, told *Mondoweiss* back in August. She was referring to the Israeli
strikes against leaders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Gaza. The
Israeli onslaught on Gaza, which took the lives of 51 Palestinians
<https://mondoweiss.net/2022/10/four-youth-killed-in-the-last-24-hours-amidst-ongoing-israeli-wave-of-extra-judicial-assassinations/>,
17 of whom were children, was motivated by the PIJ’s role in funding armed
groups in the West Bank.

One of the main groups that was founded by the PIJ was the Jenin
Brigade, *Katibet
Jenin* in Arabic. Although the Brigade initially functioned as a Jenin
branch of *Saraya al-Quds* (the Al-Quds Brigades, the PIJ’s armed wing),
the Jenin Brigade has now evolved into a more complex and politically
unaffiliated formation. It operates as an umbrella organization for a
diverse set of armed groups, and the political and factional ideologies of
the various fighters in the Brigade have taken a backseat to the immediate
objective of protecting the camp and repelling Israeli incursions.

“Each faction operates on its own,” 43-year-old Abu Mujahed, the camp’s
spokesperson for the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (Fatah’s armed wing) told
*Mondoweiss* from a home that had harbored the two Palestinian escapees
from the Gilboa Prison break
<https://mondoweiss.net/2022/09/we-are-living-in-graves-and-our-demand-is-freedom-the-gilboa-prison-break-one-year-later/>,
Munadel Nufeiat and Ayham Kamamji. “But when the army invades, we are all
on the ground,” he said.

By “we,” Abu Mujahed refers to all of the armed political organizations,
regardless of political faction. Since *Saraya al-Quds* and the Al-Aqsa
Martyrs Brigade operate in tandem, Israel is no longer interested in
targeting, or isolating, one faction at the expense of another.  The effect
this has had for Palestinians is to erode, if not dissolve, factional
rivalries. This has not, however, meant the dissolution of factional
affiliation.

For fighters, being part of a faction is not necessarily about ideological
agreement or a political line, but rather becomes a means of operating
within the safety of membership. “I get my legitimacy, my cover…from the
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade,” Abu Mujahed says.

“We have directly informed the leadership that we will not forgo the
rifle,” Abu Mujahed continued. Glancing occasionally at his phone for word
of an Israeli invasion of the camp, he turns back to me and says defiantly:
“we are with armed resistance.”

As resistance fighters refuse to operate clandestinely or underground, they
allow for a transparency that carves a space for political diversity and
battle-unity. This continues to allow resistance groups to flaunt their
presence in the streets — to their fellow Palestinians
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz2mnvizmDw>, but also to the globe — as a
legitimate armed group resisting an illegal Israeli occupation
<https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/10/commission-inquiry-finds-israeli-occupation-unlawful-under-international-law>
.
A Liberated Palestinian Area

With dawn prayers just two hours away, the streets of Jenin refugee camp
are still. The shadows of the camp loom over the heads of the scouts moving
within the camp. Everyone else is in their homes, knowing that an Israeli
military raid is more than likely to occur.

In June, the Israeli military’s social media account described
<https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1537834970819006464> Jenin as “a stronghold
for the world’s deadliest terrorist groups.” This language is reminiscent
of the precursors to the 2002 invasion of the West Bank, when Israel
launched Operation Defensive Shield
<https://mondoweiss.net/2017/05/remembering-operation-defensive/> against
Palestinian towns, villages, and cities. Jenin and Nablus
<https://mondoweiss.net/2022/04/remembering-jenin-20-years-after-in-the-shadow-of-ukraine/>,
located in the northern West Bank, bore the brunt of the attack.

The primary objective of the operation was to “strike Palestinian terrorist
infrastructures and put an end to the wave of terrorist attacks against
Israeli citizens,” according to the official Israeli army website. Yet,
almost two decades after the brutal invasion — which caused more harm to
non-combatants and civilians, especially children — resistance continues to
rise out of Jenin and elsewhere.

Like the Lions’ Den
<https://mondoweiss.net/2022/11/the-story-of-the-lions-den/> operating out
of the Old City in Nablus, Jenin refugee camp has become a neighborhood of
wanted men left to fend for themselves and to protect their townspeople
amid attacks by the Israeli military and special forces.

Abu Daboor stands with his arms crossed at the entrance of the camp. The
young fighter shows his pistol for a moment and tucks it away. “Look, I
consider Jenin refugee camp as a liberated Palestinian area,” he says with
enthusiasm.

During Israeli army operations and raids on Palestinian cities and towns, a
soldier can often be heard shouting from the speakers attached to the army
vehicle declaring the area as “a closed military zone.”

This illegal practice
<https://law.acri.org.il/en/protestright-subject/closed-military-zone/> acts
as a precursor to a violent crackdown on Palestinians in the area. During
the years of the Second Intifada, and after it, Israeli soldiers would
commonly threaten via loudspeakers that “whoever is roaming will be
killed*.*”

Yet for the first time, Jenin refugee camp cannot be turned into a closed
military area and invaded by Israeli forces freely and without impediment.
“Jenin is a liberated area. We hope it extends to the rest of Palestine, as
the small liberated areas spread,” Abu Daboor told *Mondoweiss*, hoping
that such a strategy would gradually win **“one bit back at a time.” This
is where the power of the Jenin model lies, in inspiring Palestinians, if
not by success, then by lessons learned from past failures.

Amid the violent crackdown on Palestinian resistance in Nablus
<https://mondoweiss.net/2022/10/israeli-army-launches-massive-overnight-assault-on-nablus-6-palestinians-killed/>
 and Jenin
<https://mondoweiss.net/2022/11/in-a-bloody-24-hours-four-palestinians-killed-by-israeli-forces/>,
a new “disruption brigade” has taken shape in Ramallah and Al-Bireh. This
comes at a time when Palestinian youth from Ramallah, Nablus, Bethlehem,
and many other areas of the West Bank are finding new means of
confrontation.
A Resistance Movement Emerges Under The Leadership’s Nose

Before the assassination of the three resistance fighters
<https://mondoweiss.net/2022/02/israeli-forces-kill-2-palestinian-teens-in-24-hours-5-palestinians-in-a-week/>
from
Nablus on February 8, the Jenin Brigade was already triggering Israeli
anxiety around the specter of Palestinian armed confrontation with the army.

“I am not going to lie to you,” Abu Mujahed said. “There is no real
strategy here. We are going with the flow, to be frank,” he remarked with
disarming candor. “All of this, it’s a collective popular wave.”

Palestinian resistance fighters are neither separate from the broader
Palestinian community, nor isolated from their generational peers. In one
hand, they carry the gun, and in the other, they pursue unity of struggle
and forge bonds of comradeship.

“Our approach is to increase and reinforce Palestinian resistance and
national unity,” Abu Mujhad says. Yet as Palestinian resistance groups in
Jenin and Nablus embody political unity in their struggle against
colonialism, unity at the political level remains ever distant.

The interactions observed between Palestinian leaders and representatives
from both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) showcase a widening
disconnect from the Palestinian lived reality, as well as the diplomatic
frameworks under which leaders operate, in order to ensure their own
factional survival, relevance, or control.

“After being released from Israeli prisons, I was targeted by the PA,” Abu
Daboor recalls, noting that he had spent almost five years in Israeli
prisons throughout his twenties. “I was first targeted by the PA a year and
a half ago, and the PA tried to kill me twice before.” Abu Daboor’s tone
turns sour, as he recounts the drive-by shooting incident that targeted him
last year.

Since the marked rise of Palestinian resistance against illegal Israeli
settlement expansion, the PA and Hamas leadership have released public
statements of support for the resistance.

Yet both have to varying degrees stood by and allowed the targeted
assassinations of resistance fighters to take place. This was the case with
Hamas’ lack of intervention during the recent Gaza attack — when Israel
targeted PIJ offices in Gaza and assassinated PIJ senior commander Tayseer
Al-Jaabari
<https://mondoweiss.net/2022/08/10-palestinians-one-child-killed-in-israeli-airstrikes-on-gaza/>,
Israel was sure not to harm any of the Hamas offices in the building shared
with the PIJ.

The PA has taken this many steps further, directly participating in
quelling the resistance and doing Israel’s dirty work. This was the case
with the PA’s arrest of two members of the Lions’ Den
<https://mondoweiss.net/2022/09/pa-arrests-resistance-fighters-in-nablus-many-injured-and-one-man-left-dead-after-clashes/>
in
Nablus back in September.

The Palestinian population’s aspirations to live independently, freely, and
with control over their own fate, is the primary driver behind this period
of armed confrontation. But while the spotlight is now on the armed groups,
the Palestinian population at large has engaged in open confrontation with
Israeli authorities. The impunity of settler violence and persistent
settlement expansion only adds fuel to the fire, and bubbling beneath the
surface is a sea of collective unrest.
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