The Palestinian Authority is fighting for its life – and the post-war governance of Gaza
For years, Jenin refugee camp in the north of the West Bank has been a centre of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation. More recently the Israeli military has intensified its raids on the camp, detaining thousands and killing over 200, many of them in air strikes.
So what? Now the camp is under fire again – but not from Israel. This unprecedented crackdown is being led by the Palestinian Authority (PA).
- For over a month the camp has been besieged, with water and electricity shut off, movement severely restricted and gun fighting on the streets.
- The PA’s forces have arrested 247 suspects, seized weapons and killed and tortured civilians, including journalists.
- It’s being described by Palestinians as a civil war.
Operation Protect the Homeland. The raids are targeting the Jenin Brigade, a group of militants with loose ties to armed factions like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad who have led resistance to Israel’s raids on the camp since October 7th. These fighters, mostly born after the failure of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, have none of the optimism their parents had in the promise of diplomacy to end the conflict.
Why now? Support for the PA among Palestinians is at an all-time low: a 2024 poll found that two-thirds of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza view the PA as a burden. It’s widely seen as
- corrupt – having refused to hold elections in nearly 20 years;
- feeble – unable to protect its own as Israel continues to bombard Gaza and expand settlements in the West Bank, with escalating settler violence; and
- bankrupt – failing to pay public sector salaries as an intensifying crisis threatens to collapse the West Bank economy.
Analysts see the PA’s operation as a last-ditch attempt to cling to power. And the timing is crucial. With Trump’s inauguration days away and ceasefire talks progressing in Doha, the PA is ratcheting up violence against its own people in the hope of being entrusted with a new responsibility: the post-war governance of Gaza.
State-in-waiting. The PA was established through the Oslo Accords of the 1990s as a temporary body to enable the Palestinians to administer the West Bank and Gaza themselves. Its mandate, which included coordination with Israel on suppressing armed groups, was supposed to last five years ahead of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
But… That never happened. The peace process collapsed and the PA was left on life support with little power beyond the day-to-day running of Palestinian urban centres – while the Israeli army retained the ability to raid those areas at will. In 2006 Hamas won elections in Gaza and ousted the PA, leaving PA power reduced to the West Bank where Israel continues to expand settlements on Palestinian land.
Deterioration. Since October 7th, settler violence across the West Bank has reached record levels, with over 1,200 attacks on Palestinians in the first 10 months of the war. Palestinian attacks against Israeli settlers and soldiers have also increased.
- In the past year Israel has pressed ahead with more West Bank settlements than any year since Oslo.
- Recently Israeli settlers have put up billboards across the West Bank with Arabic text reading “No Future in Palestine” alongside images of displaced families in Gaza.
- Last week, following the killing of two Israeli settlers by Palestinian gunmen, Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister who also oversees Israeli policy in the West Bank, called for all-out violence against Palestinian communities in the West Bank.
Bum deal. The PA claims its efforts to stamp out armed resistance in Jenin will end Israel’s pretext for attacking the camp. Most are unconvinced. Experts say Israel has its sights set on annexing the West Bank regardless – a move Trump is expected to support.
Returning to Gaza. The Biden administration and most Arab states support the idea of the PA running Gaza. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu opposes it in favour of long-term Israeli military control. But a senior Palestinian official believes the West Bank operation is futile. “If the PA succeeds in Jenin, it will lose its justification for existence among Palestinians,” he said.
What’s more… “If it fails, it will lose its justification for existence in relation to Israel.”
