PA: No plans to disarm Jenin armed group

The Palestinian Authority does not have plans to crack down on the Jenin Battalion, whose members are affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or other armed groups in Jenin Refugee Camp, Palestinian officials said on Wednesday. The PA, however, won’t tolerate scenes of anarchy and lawlessness and won’t allow gunmen to run wild in any part of the West Bank, the officials said.

Reports concerning a decision by the PA leadership to crack down on the armed groups in Jenin and other parts of the northern West Bank surfaced shortly after the large-scale Israeli military operation in Jenin Refugee Camp earlier this month.

 A Palestinian official in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post that, contrary to reports in some Israeli media outlets, the PA security forces have not launched a security campaign against the armed groups in the northern West Bank. Nor are these forces planning to deploy inside Jenin Refugee Camp, the official said.  

The official blamed Israel, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad for “spreading rumors and lies” about the activities of the PA security forces. He pointed out that the five Palestinians who were recently arrested by the PA security forces are suspected of attacking a Palestinian police station in the village of Jaba’, near Jenin, earlier this month. The suspects, who belong to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the ruling Fatah faction, are believed to be members of a local gang called Jaba’ Battalion. 

What led to the attack?

The alleged attack took place in response to the arrest of two Palestinian Islamic Jihad members – Murad Malaisheh and Mohammed Barahmeh – on the first day of the Israeli operation in Jenin Refugee Camp. Sources in Jenin claimed that the two were on their way to join the fighting against Israeli troops in and around the camp. 

The PA, however, said the two men were arrested after they arrived at a checkpoint manned by PA security officers in the town of Tubas, west of the Jordan Valley. The officers confiscated the rifles of Malaisheh and Barahmeh before arresting them for questioning. 

The official denied that the two men were on their way to join the fighting against the IDF soldiers in Jenin Refugee Camp, but refused to provide further details as to why they were arrested. 

“The five suspects from Jaba’ were not arrested because of their political affiliation, but for their role in the attack on the police station,” the official said. “One of suspects who belongs to Hamas is suspected of shooting at the police station, while the others are accused of setting it on fire. It’s ridiculous to see that Palestinian Islamic Jihad has endorsed the five men as its members.”

The arrest of the five men from Jaba’ drew strong condemnations from Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other armed groups. Earlier this week, the Jenin Battalion called on Palestinians to take to the streets to protest against the “political arrests” allegedly carried out by the PA security forces. The group, together with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, claimed that the PA was in collusion with Israel to crush the “resistance fighters” in the West Bank. 

The Jenin Battalion claimed in a statement that it agreed to PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s visit to Jenin Refugee Camp on July 12 only after it received promises that Malaisheh and Barahmeh would be released and their weapons retrieved. The PA security forces did hand over the two seized rifles to the Jenin Battalion, but refused to release the two men.

The PA Ministry of Interior, which is in charge of the PA security forces, earlier this week issued a stiff warning to the unruly gunmen, saying it will cut off the hands that tamper with the security and stability of the Palestinian people. The warning came in response to the call for holding protests against the PA and its security forces. 

PA Governor of Jenin Akram Rajoub denied that the PA had reached any deal with the Jenin Battalion prior to Abbas’s visit. “There are no agreements, and no agreements have been concluded [with the armed group],” Rajoub said in an interview with the Palestinian Alam radio station. “The Palestinian president can go anywhere he wants, and at any time he wants. We don’t need to negotiate with anyone and we don’t need permission from anyone. These claims are nonsense. It’s as if these gunmen control Jenin and President Mahmoud Abbas needs permission from them to visit. This is shameful and unacceptable.”

Rajoub accused unnamed parties of seeking to drag the PA and the armed groups into an “artificial crisis.” He said that those responsible must reconsider their position and think before they speak out. 

“We won’t allow anyone to impose his agenda on the Palestinian Authority,” he said. “We will impose law and order. We didn’t arrest anyone from Jenin Refugee Camp. The only people who were arrested are those who attacked the police station in Jaba’. All those who attacked the station will be arrested and held accountable.”

Rajoub said that the PA “holds in high esteem anyone who carries weapons and resists the occupation.” But, he added, the PA “won’t allow anyone to carry weapons under the banner of resistance and attack our institutions and shoot at our security forces.”

A source in Jenin Battalion ruled out the possibility that the PA security forces would succeed in eliminating the armed groups in Jenin Refugee Camp. The source was quoted by the Hezbollah-affiliated newspaper Al-Akhbar as saying that the PA knows that the situation in the camp is different than other places in the West Bank, including the Old City of Nablus, where the Palestinian security forces were able to persuade many gunmen to turn themselves in and lay down their weapons.

The source claimed that members of the Jenin Battalion turned down offers from the PA to be recruited to the Palestinian security forces in return for halting their activities.