Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken shake hands prior to a meeting at the Muqata, the presidential compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on Nov. 30, 2023. (Saul Loeb, Pool, AFP, Getty Images/TNS)
(Tribune News Service) — The Palestinian government has been carrying out a rare and lethal sweep against militants in a flashpoint West Bank city, saying it was needed to foil an imminent car-bombing and other attacks.
The operation by the Palestinian Authority, targeting Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants in the city of Jenin, was launched on Dec. 5 but only announced this weekend as clashes escalated. Three Palestinians — at least two of them gunmen — have been killed and several PA security men wounded.
“The security forces managed to prevent potential disasters for our people,” the P.A. military spokesman, Brig.-Gen. Anwar Rajab, said, accusing local gunmen of “ISIS-like practices and behavior.”
The operation comes as the P.A. is seeking to bolster its credibility as an organization capable of strong governance, amid ongoing Israeli raids there and Donald Trump’s return to the White House. The P.A. and some outside nations say it should be a body to govern a post-war Gaza, a possibility Israel rejects.
Israel is separately beefing up West Bank troop deployments, especially around Jewish settlements. Its defense minister, Israel Katz, on Thursday predicted possible attacks by “radical Islamist terrorists who have been inspired by the rebel assault in Syria.”
Axios reported on Sunday that the Biden administration has asked Israel to approve military assistance to the PA for the West Bank operation. The report quoted unnamed U.S., Palestinian and Israeli officials.
The P.A. had a rocky relationship with Trump during his first term. Though Trump strongly supports Israel, he has also spoken out against the length of the Gaza war and pledged in a Time magazine interview to see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “get solved.”
Founded after interim peace accords with Israel three decades ago, the P.A. wields limited self-governance in the West Bank after it was ousted from the Gaza Strip by Islamist Hamas in 2007. Though P.A. and Israeli security forces sometimes cooperate, their officials trade blame about a West Bank drift into violence and lawlessness that has been exacerbated by Israel’s clampdown on work permits during the Gaza war.
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