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| Photo Credit: AP. |
NABLUS, West Bank (AP) — Nablus was a battered city. Shops gaped open to the street, their windows smashed. Street signs were overturned. Ash stained the roads. Armored vehicles roamed the city center, still pockmarked and splattered with paint from a day of protests.
The
destruction resembled the aftermath of firefights between Palestinian youths
and the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank’s second-largest city, where
posters of killed Palestinians paper the old city’s limestone walls. But this
time, Israel was not involved. The violent chaos on Tuesday that left a
53-year-old man dead erupted between Palestinians and their own security
forces, who coordinate with Israel in an uneasy alliance against Islamic
militants.
The rare
outburst, coming amid the deadliest violence in the West Bank since 2016,
underscored the internal divisions tearing at Palestinian society and cast a
spotlight on the growing ranks of disillusioned, impoverished young men taking
up arms.
Many have
spent their entire lives in a territory occupied by Israel, scarred by
infighting and segmented by checkpoints. They have not known a national
election since 2006. They have no hope in the long-stalemated peace process.
Their aging president, Mahmoud Abbas, is in his 18th year of what was supposed
to be a four-year term. They see his Palestinian Authority as a vehicle for corruption
and collaboration with Israel.
The clashes
erupted after Palestinian forces arrested two men, including Musab Ishtayyeh, a
popular local militant wanted by Israel. A 26-year-old man who lives in the
area said that although the sides reached a truce, further violence was likely
unless Ishtayyeh is released.
“I do not
recognize the presidency of Abu Mazen,” he said, voicing a popular sentiment in
the neighborhood. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared arrest.
“There is no
difference between Israel and the Palestinian Authority,” he added, saying the
Palestinian security forces “want to burn the resistance and kill those who
fight.”
The latest
violence stems from a series of deadly Palestinian attacks inside Israel last
spring, which triggered a surge in nightly Israeli arrest raids across the
territory. Some 90 Palestinians have been killed in the crackdown. Israel says
many were militants or local youths who hurled stones and firebombs at troops,
though several civilians have also died.
Experts say
the escalation has deeper roots in a power struggle, as Palestinian leaders vie
over the succession of the 87-year-old Abbas.
“The
leadership vacuum is trickling down from the top all the way down. High-level
members are trying to rally their supporters for doomsday,” said Tahani
Mustafa, an analyst at the International Crisis Group. “In these sorts of
contexts, radicalism really thrives.”
A lack of
opportunity and political horizon has also fueled the unrest. Israel captured
the West Bank in 1967, and its military occupation shows no signs of ending.
The last
round of substantive peace talks broke down in 2009, and Israel has steadily
consolidated its control of the territory with ever expanding construction of
settlements that are now home to some 500,000 Jews. The Palestinians seek all
of the West Bank, along with Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem and the
Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, for a future state.
Widely
disenchanted with the PA, young Palestinians are flocking to an array of
militant groups to get weapons. Palestinian security has struggled to assert
control in flashpoint cities in the northern West Bank, like Nablus and Jenin.
The
instability has consequences for Israel, which depends on cooperation with
Palestinian security, and for the United States and other countries that have
relied on the PA to establish order in the West Bank and serve as a partner in
stalled peace negotiations.
“We need the
PA to operate as a buffer between us and all the (Palestinian) organizations,”
said Michael Milstein, a former head of the Palestinian department in Israeli
military intelligence. “The test has only just begun.”
Palestinian
security officials declined to comment on this week’s violence or the reasons
for their unpopularity.
In recent
months, the Israeli military has grown frustrated with what it describes as the
PA’s reluctance to maintain order in flashpoint cities under its control.
“The PA has
the manpower, the ammunition and the arms,” said one Israeli military official,
speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity in line with
military guidelines. “In certain places, we feel they don’t have the will.”
The official
said the army has seized 300 guns since Israel began its West Bank raids. He
said the arms come mainly from small factories that make improvised pistols, or
are smuggled from Jordan, Egypt or Lebanon. Some guns stolen from the military
also make their way to the West Bank.
Wednesday’s
truce temporarily halted the fighting, but the streets still bristled with
tension and an armed group vowed to continue the battle on behalf of their
arrested comrades.
“We will not abandon our brother … who is wanted
by the occupation forces and is currently kidnapped,” the militant group, named
the Den of Lions, wrote to the AP.
The group,
based in the stone warren of the old city, is tied to Ibrahim al-Nabulsi, a
prominent militant who was killed in an Israeli raid last month. His photo is
on coffee stands, graffiti, posters and necklaces worn by children in Nablus.
The Palestinian security services identified him as the son of one of their own
colonels — a schism that illustrates how younger Palestinians, who grew up
during the searing violence of the second Palestinian intifada, have lost faith
in their leaders.
Many
Palestinians see their security forces as protecting Israel against Palestinian
protests, not Palestinians from Israeli assaults. The forces also have faced
widespread criticism over brutal tactics, like last year when riots erupted
over an anti-corruption activist’s death in custody.
Gangs of
young Palestinian men are increasingly firing at Israeli forces during raids or
shooting at soldiers manning checkpoints. The gangs operate without the backing
of traditional political factions and militant groups.
Last week,
two Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli soldier at a military checkpoint in
the northern West Bank before they were shot dead. One of the attackers was a
Palestinian security officer.
Ghassan
Khatib, a former Palestinian peace negotiator and Cabinet minister,
acknowledged there is little public faith in the Palestinian leadership. He
blamed a lack of hope and repeated Israeli measures that have weakened the
Palestinian Authority.
“If
everybody would maintain the same attitude and practices,” he warned, “we are
going gradually toward the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, and chaos in
Palestinian society.”
AP writers
Tia Goldenberg and Eleanor Reich in Jerusalem contributed to this story.