Israel-Hamas war ​Destruction in Gaza ​Israeli festival-goer’s fate ​A stone, a bullet, a burial ​‘He i

WORLD & NATION

Amid war, some Palestinians rage against another target: Their

own rulers

Residents of Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, comb through rubble in the aftermath of an Oct. 22 Israeli airstrike on a local
mosque.

BY NABIH BULOS | FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT

Photography by MARCUS YAM

NOV. 1, 2023 3 AM PT
JENIN, West Bank — Even amid the terrible destruction that has transformed parts
of Jenin into pits of jumbled masonry, the bullet-pocked tower of the Palestinian
government headquarters stands out — not for the relatively light damage it
sustained but for who caused it.

Whereas homes in this West Bank city have been demolished by Israeli troops, roads
have been churned up by Israeli bulldozers and storefronts have been disfigured by
Israeli gunfire, the offices of the Sultah, or Palestinian Authority, were attacked by
Palestinians themselves during a noisy protest over Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.

Disgusted with the authority’s inability to protect its own people or stand up to Israel,
militants in the crowd aimed their bullets at the government compound after its
security forces tried to break up the demonstration.

“The Sultah started firing live rounds at us to stop it, so the guys fired back,” said Abu
Hamzeh, a bulky 37-year-old fighter with the Jenin Brigade, a cross-factional
Palestinian resistance group that includes members of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and
Fatah.
Palestinian fighters escort the funeral procession for Mohammad Abu Aabed, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Al
Ansar Mosque in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, on Oct. 22.

His comrade in arms beside him, hand on the butt of a weathered-looking M4 rifle,
warned of Palestinians’ growing anger with their nominal rulers alongside their
antipathy toward Israel.

“When things get beyond the limit, it’s a problem,” said Abu Mohammad, 33. “When
you pressure us, there will be an explosion. We’re facing both Israel and the Sultah.”

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Since Oct. 7, when Hamas launched its multipronged cross-border attack on southern
Israel, killing some 1,400 people and capturing more than 200 others, the Israeli
government has stepped up what it calls counterterrorism operations across the
occupied West Bank alongside its relentless offensive in Gaza. The United Nations
says that more than 120 Palestinians, including 33 children, have been killed by
Israeli security forces or settlers in the West Bank.

In the last week, restive Jenin, long a militant hotbed, has become the site of near-
daily raids involving scores of Israeli soldiers, dozens of armored vehicles and even
airstrikes that have killed at least a dozen people, according to Palestinian health
officials. Israel says the incursions target terrorists who have attacked Israelis in the
past or are planning to do so.

Mourners attend the funeral procession of two men killed in an Israeli airstrike on Al Ansar Mosque in Jenin, in the
occupied West Bank.

Although much of their fury is directed at Israel, many in Jenin accuse the Palestinian
Authority of abandoning them, saying its leaders are more concerned with their own
survival and its security forces with pursuing Palestinian armed groups at Israel’s
behest than they are with protecting Palestinian lives.

“When Palestinian Authority security personnel withdraw from the streets, people
here start stocking up because they believe an Israeli incursion will soon follow,” said
Mustafa Sheta, who heads the Freedom Theater in Jenin’s refugee camp, echoing a
common view that the local security forces are too cozy with their Israeli
counterparts.

The Palestinian Authority, which was founded as a proto-state administration as a

result of the 1993 Oslo peace accords, manifests itself mainly as a sprawling
bureaucracy across the West Bank, where it has limited powers. In Gaza it has none,
after the violent ouster there of its ruling party, Fatah, in 2007 by Hamas, its top
rival.

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As yet, there does not seem to be any movement to drive out Fatah and the
Palestinian Authority from the West Bank as well, which would create a dangerous
power vacuum.

But disenchantment with the authority — its weakness, inefficiency and corruption
scandals — has been brewing for years. And the idea that Fatah and the authority
could reestablish control in Gaza if Israel succeeds in its goal of extirpating Hamas
seems ludicrous to many Palestinians, who consider Mahmoud Abbas, the authority’s
octogenarian president, as moribund as the administration he heads. Although
Palestinian Authority presidents serve a four-year term, Abbas was voted into office
in 2005 and has not held an election since.
 As Israel pursues its punishing ground offensive in Gaza and the casualties mount,
the Palestinian Authority’s impotence only comes into sharper relief. On Tuesday, in
response to reports that Israel had bombed the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza,
Palestinian groups called for protests and a West Bank-wide strike Wednesday.

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1. Palestinian fighters’ weapons sit inside a home in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank. 2. A Palestinian fighter displays
items he dug out of the rubble in the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike on a mosque in Jenin. 3. A view of the Jenin
refugee camp. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Israel remains in de facto control of the West Bank and coordinates with the
Palestinian Authority’s security apparatus to stop Palestinian militant attacks, either
through the authority’s security personnel or through its own operations — a deeply
unpopular policy that critics say reduces the authority to little more than Israel’s
guard dog.

There was a time when the Palestinian Authority represented hope for Jenin. In
2008, six years after Israel demolished vast swaths of the city during the second
intifada, or Palestinian uprising, Jenin was seen as a model of Palestinian-Israeli
cooperation, in matters of both security and economic investment that would bring
peace through prosperity. Even former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, then the
defense minister, called it a “great success” that, “done right, we think could become
an example.”
Residents examine the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike on the Al Ansar Mosque.

Few believe that now, especially not in the Jenin refugee camp, a decrepit
neighborhood running up a steep hill, whose 14,000 residents are refugees and their
descendants from the 1948 “Nakba” — “catastrophe” in Arabic — referring to the
mass displacement of Arabs that accompanied Israel’s independence.

The camp, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the West Bank, is steeped in the
culture of resistance against Israel’s occupation. At night, residents place metal
hedgehogs at the camp’s entrances to stymie armored vehicles, while keeping a close
eye on anyone coming in, for fear of Israeli undercover agents. Almost no building is
free of a martyr poster, and the cemeteries overflow with those killed in clashes with
Israeli troops. Since July, a fourth graveyard has had to be opened.

Sitting in a living room with martyr posters of Abu Mohammad’s relatives who were
killed while fighting together with the Palestinian security forces they both now
revile, Abu Mohammad and Abu Hamzeh — the two men’s noms de guerre —
complained at length about how the Palestinian Authority’s economic policies had
plunged people into debt and poverty, forcing them to rely on handouts rather than
fight the occupation. The authority’s security coordination with Israel they viewed
nowadays as nothing less than treason.

Family and members of the community attend the funeral for Mohammad Abu Aabed, who was killed by an Israeli
airstrike on the Al Ansar Mosque.

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In many ways, the two fighters’ lives tracked the trajectory of the souring relationship
between the Palestinian Authority and the people it ostensibly governs.
 Both had once been members of the security apparatus for years before Israel’s
suspicions of militant links led to their being imprisoned — Abu Mohammad by
Israel, Abu Hamzeh by the Palestinian Authority — and then fired from their jobs.
Faced with few prospects and a new ultranationalist Israeli government they see as
intent on empowering settlers and frustrating hopes of Palestinian nationhood, they
joined the Jenin Brigade, making them wanted men in the eyes of Israel and the
Palestinian Authority.

The group was formed in 2021 with funding from Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad and
brings together different armed factions in joint pursuit of the refugee camp’s
defense.

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1. Samira Salahat pours water onto her son Izz Al-Deen’s gravesite to pay her respects at the Jenin cemetery. 2. A
cemetery at the Jenin refugee camp. 3. Abla Al Aabed, center, mourns her son, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on
Jenin. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

The rift with the authority had been growing for some time, the two men said, but the
chasm had never been as wide as now, with Israel’s military giving settlers free rein
and mounting a security dragnet that has killed scores of Palestinians in the West
Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7 incursion.

“I’ll throw away my gun, but come protect me,” Abu Mohammad said, in a challenge
to the Palestinian Authority. “Stop them from entering my home, beating my mother,
wife and children, and I’ll throw away the gun.”

Failing that, he added, the authority should move out of fighters’ way rather than help
Israel neutralize them.

“If anyone — Muslim, Arab, Christian, Jew — comes near the weapon I use to fight
the Israelis, I’ll kill him,” he said.

Abu Hamzeh issued his own warning to the Palestinian Authority and its forces.
Residents examine the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike on Al Ansar Mosque, where two Palestinians were killed, in Jenin,
in the occupied West Bank.

“We hope our brothers in the security apparatus know the right path against the
occupation, because when it comes to the West Bank, Israel will do like it did in Gaza
and won’t show mercy to anyone, to neither us, Sultah security personnel, women or
children,” he said.

Although the Jenin refugee camp has long been in Israel’s crosshairs, the military’s
recent raids display a different level of ferocity, residents say.

On Monday, Israel deployed drones, snipers and dozens of armored vehicles,

including two bulldozers that tore up streets and infrastructure near the camp,
leveled the iconic arched gate over its entrance and destroyed a sculpture
commemorating the 2002 Israeli incursion. Four men were killed and nine other
people were wounded, Palestinian health authorities said.
Late on Tuesday, Israeli special forces teams surged into Jenin, broke into the house
of a top Fatah leader in the city and beat him and his son before taking them into
custody, residents said. That was followed by yet another incursion involving
bulldozers, drones, snipers, dozens of troops and airstrikes. They withdrew several
hours later, leaving three Palestinians dead and a trail of bullet-scarred walls, ripped-
up asphalt and destroyed cars.

Family and members of the community attend the funeral of Mohammad Abu Aabed, who was killed in an Israeli
airstrike in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, on Oct. 22.

On Oct. 22, a pair of missiles lanced through the roof of Al Ansar Mosque, blowing up
the main hall, shredding two Jenin Brigade fighters and nearly killing a third,
witnesses said.

Afterward, said a militant who identified himself only as Ahmad, the Israeli
intelligence officer responsible for the area, who goes by the nom de guerre Captain
Iyad, called fighters’ relatives.
“He phoned up the families of all the guys. Called my wife, told her: ‘Ahmad escaped
this time. If he doesn’t give himself up at 7 a.m., consider him a dead man,’” Ahmad
said, a sardonic look on his face because it was already past 8 a.m. when he recounted
the story to a Times reporter.

He and other members of the Jenin Brigade expect no mercy from the Israelis, nor
any help from the official Palestinian leadership.

“Every one of us knew the moment we carried the rifle we were dead men,” he said,
adding: “We’re not going anywhere.”

Nabih Bulos

Nabih Bulos is the Middle East bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times. Since 2012,
he has covered the aftermath of the “Arab Spring” revolution as well as the Islamic
State’s resurgence and the campaign to defeat it. His work has taken him to Syria,
Iraq, Libya, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Yemen as well as on the migrant trail
through the Balkans and northern Europe. A Fulbright scholar, Bulos is also a concert
violinist who has performed with Daniel Barenboim, Valeri Gergyev and Bono.

Marcus Yam

Marcus Yam is a foreign correspondent and photographer for the Los Angeles Times.
Since joining in 2014, he has covered a wide range of topics including humanitarian
issues, social justice, terrorism, foreign conflicts, natural disasters, politics and
celebrity portraiture. He won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography in
2022 for images documenting the U.S. departure from Afghanistan that capture the
human cost of the historic change in the country. Yam is a two-time recipient of the
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Journalism Award, notably in 2019, for his
unflinching body of work showing the everyday plight of Gazans during deadly