Clashes in the West Bank between the Palestinian Authority and fighters | Conflict in the Middle East

Shops were closed and gunshots rang out in the streets of Jenin on Tuesday during the funeral of a young man killed during clashes between activists and Palestinian security forces in the West Bank town.

A small group that began marching from one of the city’s main squares quickly grew when dozens of residents joined them, chanting It’s Jenin’s voice! et Palestinian blood is expensive! heading toward the city’s refugee camp, a bastion of militant activity.

There, a crowd gathered to wait for the body of Rahbi Chalabi, 19, killed during clashes between city activist groups and Palestinian Authority security forces, to be brought to the mosque in camp.

In a tense silence, punctuated by shots coming from the depths of the camp, the crowd, mourners and armed fighters, carried the corpse brought by an ambulance into the mosque, whose walls are decorated with posters of fallen fighters. of honor.

Flanked by masked militants, an M-16 rifle around his chest, Noor Al-Bitawi told Agence France-Presse (AFP) outside the mosque that tensions between the activist groups and Palestinian security forces predated Chalabi’s death.

Tensions

Since last Thursday, Jenin has been the scene of clashes around the refugee camp, a stronghold of Palestinian activists engaged in the fight against Israel. That day, a group of armed men seized two vehicles belonging to the Palestinian Authority, according to witnesses. They then paraded armed through the streets of the camp brandishing Islamic Jihad flags.

Noor Al-Bitawi, a leader of the Jenin Battalion, a group primarily affiliated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, said that for the Palestinian Authority, the issue was not about cars or the camp, but about ending the jihadist situation in the city of Jenin.

Another activist from the Jenin brigade, who asked to be referred to by his nom de guerre, Rocketblamed Palestinian security forces for the clashes. They raided our group, took two of our best young people and then brought this whole force to threaten ushe declared, a rifle stuck to his chest.

Standing on the muddy ground of the camp, he declared that they would hand over their weapons to the Palestinian Authority only if they protect us from the Israelis.

Every day we are shocked by the shootings of the authorities [palestiniennes] on our cars, our homes and our possessions. They constantly harass us.

In search of unity

Khairi Hanoun, another activist waving a Palestinian flag, said unity among Palestinians was essential in the West Bank, territory occupied by Israel since 1967.

This is because violence between Palestinian armed groups and the Israeli army, already recurring in the north of the West Bank before the war in the Gaza Strip triggered on October 7, 2023 by the attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas against Israel, has exploded since then. .

While the funeral took place at the mosque, a group of civil society representatives gathered outside Jenin Hospital, calling for Palestinian unity.

We need our unity to confront all the plans of the Israeli government in the West Banksaid Abdallah Jarrar, another Jenin resident.

As night fell over the northern West Bank city on Tuesday, security forces in armored vehicles remained on alert on Jenin’s main streets.

Incessant bombings in Gaza

Meanwhile, Israeli bombardments continue in the Gaza Strip.

Gaza Civil Defense said Tuesday that Israeli strikes the day before on the northern Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip left 25 people dead, including women and children.

At 8 p.m [heure locale] yesterday evening, Israeli strikes targeted a multi-story building […]killing 25 people. Sixteen bodies have been identified, while others remain trapped under the rubbleCivil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal told AFP.

He said five women and five children were among the dead, while the Israeli army made no comment.

The inhabitants […] try to save those who are still buried under the rubble, he added.

For more than two months, the north of the Gaza Strip has been the subject of an intense Israeli military operation intended, according to the army, to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping there.

Earlier this evening, medical sources reported that at least seven Palestinians were killed and several others injured in a bombing that targeted a house in the Nusseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.