
REUTERS | Published January 22, 2025
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Item 1 of 6 An Israeli military vehicle uses a laser, on the day of an Israeli raid in Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, January 21, 2025. REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta
PROTECTING SETTLERS
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SOURCE: www.reuters.com
RELATED: PA makes deal with Jenin Battalion, ending standoff in West Bank city and camp
Truce comes after rupture said caused by IDF’s resumption of airstrikes in area; members of battalion, affiliated with terror groups, to surrender arms to Ramallah after 6-week op
Palestinian Authority security officers launch smoke grenades during clashes with Palestinians in the West Bank city of Jenin, December 16, 2024. (Nasser Ishtayeh/ Flash90)
THE TIMES OF ISRAEL | Published January 22, 2025
The Palestinian Authority has reached an agreement with the Jenin Battalion that will end a six-week standoff in the northern West Bank city and adjacent refugee camp, a Palestinian official confirmed to The Times of Israel on Friday.
The West Bank-based PA has been targeting the so-called Jenin Battalion, made up of operatives affiliated with terror groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in a bid to show incoming US President Donald Trump that Ramallah can maintain order in the West Bank, amid its push to take the reigns of Gaza from Hamas after the war there.
According to the official, the truce was reached Friday evening, a day after negotiations resumed following a rupture earlier this week, said to have been caused by Israel’s resumption of airstrikes on Jenin.
The truce deal requires specific members of the Jenin Battalion to hand over their weapons and allows the PA to operate freely in the refugee camp, the official said.
PA vehicles were already filmed entering the refugee camp on Friday evening with bomb-squad units to detonate explosives that the Jenin Battalion placed throughout the area to harm Israeli and PA forces. Palestinian media reported that as PA vehicles entered the camp, dozens of people gathered to chant slogans in favor of the armed groups.
Ramallah has accused Iran of funding and arming the Jenin Battalion and other armed factions throughout the West Bank. The armed groups have gained significant prominence in the northern West Bank over the past several years.
The PA, established under the 1993 Oslo Accords, has a relatively strong presence in southern and central West Bank cities, but has struggled to exert authority over the territory’s north, especially refugee camps in Jenin, Nablus and Tulkarem.
Arabic media has reported 15 Palestinians killed in the PA operation in Jenin, including six members of the PA security forces, eight civilians, and one terror suspect, and PA forces have arrested a handful of Jenin Battalion members.
Among those killed was a journalist whose family said she was struck by a PA sniper despite no fighting taking place in her vicinity.
The counterterrorism operation has emboldened the view of the PA’s Palestinian critics that Ramallah was acting on behalf of Israel. Amid the operation, the PA has cracked down on dissent, including by shutting down the West Bank offices of Qatari-owned news outlet Al Jazeera for its “interference in Palestinian affairs.”
A member of the Palestinian Authority security forces stands at a traffic circle in the Jenin refugee camp, in the northern West Bank, December 29, 2024. (Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP)
Early on in the operation, the Jenin Battalion managed to steal a pair of vehicles belonging to the PA security forces, who subsequently intensified the raid of the refugee camp.
The IDF, which also staged large-scale counterterrorism operations in the northern West Bank in recent months, has said that it was bolstering the PA forces to help them in the fight against the Jenin Battalion. The military paused its airstrikes on Jenin as PA forces operated there, but ended that policy this week with a pair of airstrikes that killed a dozen people, including civilians, on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Two Palestinian officials have told The Times of Israel that the airstrikes had caused a rupture in the ongoing truce talks between the PA and the Jenin Battalion.
One of the officials speculated that the airstrikes were pushed by far-right elements in the military and government who wanted to scuttle the deal and see the PA fail in its effort.
Israel has accused the Authority of inciting terrorism in its education system and by paying stipends to families of Palestinians detained for violent crimes.
Mourners carry the body of 19-year-old Rahbi Shalabi, who was killed during clashes between Palestinian Authority security forces and local terror groups a day earlier, during his funeral in the West Bank city of Jenin on December 10, 2024. (Zain Jaafar/AFP)
The West Bank has seen a sharp rise in violence since the Gaza war was sparked on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.
Since then, the IDF has detained some 6,000 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 2,350 affiliated with Hamas. According to the PA health ministry, more than 835 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time.
The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks. During the same period, 46 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another six members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.
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SOURCE: www.timesofisrael.com
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