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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://english.palinfo.com/articles/2022/10/20/Difficult-months-ahead-Why-Israel-is-afraid-of-the-Lions-Den">english.palinfo.com</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Difficult months ahead: Why Israel is afraid of the Lions' Den</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">By Ramzy Baroud - October 20, 2022<br></div>
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This headline in the Israeli newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, only tells
part of the story: "The Lions' Den, Other Palestinian Groups are Endless
Headache for Israel, PA."<p>
It is true that both the Israeli government and the Palestinian
Authority are equally worried about the prospect of a widespread armed
revolt in the Occupied West Bank, and that the newly formed Nablus-based
brigade, the Lions' Den, is the epicenter of this youth-led movement.</p><p>
However, the growing armed resistance in the West Bank is causing more
than a mere 'headache' for Tel Aviv and Ramallah. If this phenomenon
continues to grow, it could threaten the very existence of the PA, while
placing Israel before its most difficult choice since the invasion of
major Palestinian West Bank cities in 2002.</p><p>
Though Israeli military commanders continue to undermine the power of
the newly formed group, they seem to have no clear idea regarding its
roots, influence and future impact.</p><p>
In a recent interview with the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth,
Israeli Defense Minister, Benny Gantz, claimed that the Lions' Den is a
"group of 30 members", who will eventually be reached and eliminated.
"We will lay our hands on the terrorists," he declared.</p><p>
The Lions' Den, however, is not an isolated case, but part of a larger
phenomenon that includes the Nablus Brigades, the Jenin Brigades and
other groups, which are located mostly in the northern West Bank.</p><p>
The group, along with other armed Palestinian military units, has been
active in responding to the killing of Palestinians, including children,
elders, and, on October 14, even a Palestinian doctor, Abdullah Abu
Al-Teen, who succumbed to his wounds in Jenin. According to the
Palestinian Ministry of Health, over 170 Palestinians were killed in the
West Bank and Gaza, since the beginning of the year.</p><p>
The Palestinian response included the killing of two Israeli soldiers,
one in Shuafat on 8 October, and the other near Nablus on 11 October.</p><p>
Following the Shuafat attack, Israel completely sealed the Shuafat
refugee camp as a form of collective punishment, similar to recent
sieges on Jenin and other Palestinian towns.</p><p>
Citing Israel's Hebrew media, the Palestinian Arabic daily, Al Quds,
reported that the Israeli military will focus its operations in the
coming weeks on targeting the Lions' Den. Thousands more Israeli
occupation soldiers are likely to be deployed in the West Bank for the
upcoming battle.</p><p>
It is difficult to imagine that Israel would mobilize much of its army
to fight 30 Palestinian fighters in Nablus. But not only Israel, the PA,
too, is terribly concerned.</p><p>
The Authority has tried but failed to entice the fighters by offering
them a surrender 'deal', where they give up their arms and join the PA
forces. Such deals were offered in the past to fighters belonging to
Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, with mixed degrees of success.</p><p>
This time around, the strategy did not work. The group rejected the PA's
overtures, compelling the Fatah-affiliated governor of Nablus, Ibrahim
Ramadan, to attack the mothers of the fighters by calling them 'deviant'
for "sending their sons to commit suicide". Ramadan's language, which
is similar to language used by Israeli and pro-Israel individuals in
their depiction of Palestinian society, highlights the massive schisms
between the PA's political discourse and those of ordinary Palestinians.</p><p>
Not only is the PA losing its grasp of the narrative, but it is also
losing whatever vestiges of control it has left in the West Bank,
especially in Nablus and Jenin.</p><p>
A senior Palestinian official told the Media Line that the Palestinian
"street does not trust us any more", as they "view us as an extension of
Israel". True, but this lack of trust has been in the making for years.</p><p>
The 'Unity Intifada' of May 2021, however, served as a major turning
point in the relationship between the PA and Palestinians. The rise of
the Lions' Den and other Palestinian armed groups are but a few
manifestations of the dramatic changes underway in the West Bank.</p><p>
Indeed, the West Bank is changing. A new generation that has little or
no memory of the Second Intifada (2000-2005), had not experienced the
Israeli invasion then but grew up under occupation and apartheid,
feeding on the memories of the resistance in Jenin, Nablus and Hebron.</p><p>
Judging by their political discourse, chants and symbols, this
generation is fed up with the crippling and often superficial divisions
of Palestinians among factions, ideologies and regions. In fact, the
newly established brigades, including the Lions' Den, are believed to be
multi-factional groups bringing, for the first time, fighters from
Hamas, Fatah and others into a single platform. This explains the
popular enthusiasm and lack of suspicion among ordinary Palestinians of
the new fighters.</p><p>
For example, Saed Al-Kuni, a Palestinian fighter who was recently killed
by Israeli soldiers in an ambush on the outskirts of Nablus, was a
member of the Lions' Den. Some have claimed that Al-Kuni was a leading
member of Fatah's Brigades, and others say he was a well-known Hamas
fighter.</p><p>
This lack of certainty regarding the political identity of killed
fighters is fairly unique to Palestinian society, at least since the
establishment of the PA in 1994.</p><p>
Expectedly, Israel will do what it always does: amassing more occupation
troops, attacking, assassinating, crushing protests and laying sieges
on rebellious towns and refugee camps. What they fail to understand, at
least for now, is that the growing rebellion in the West Bank is not
generated by a few fighters in Nablus and a few more in Jenin, but is
the outcome of a truly popular sentiment.</p><p>
In an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth, translated by Al-Quds, an Israeli
commander described what he has witnessed in Jenin during a raid:</p><p>
<em>"When we enter (Jenin), armed fighters and stone throwers wait for
us in every corner. Everyone takes part. You look at an old man … and
you wonder, will he throw stones? And he does. Once, I saw a person who
had nothing to throw (on us). He rushed to his car, grabbed a milk
carton and he threw it on us."<br>
</em><br>
Palestinians are simply fed up with the Israeli occupation and with
their collaborating leadership. They are ready to put it all on the
line; in fact, in Jenin and Nablus, they already have. The coming weeks
and months are critical for the future of the West Bank and, in fact,
for all Palestinians.</p><p>
<em>- Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of the Palestine
Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is 'These Chains
Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli
Prisons'. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center
for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro-Middle East
Center (AMEC).</em></p></div></div>
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