JABA, West Bank (AP) — A stuttering blast from M-16 shattered the stillness of the West Bank village, surrounded by barley fields and olive groves. A young Palestinian man in Jabba once wanted to farm, but now he wants to fight more and more, locals say.
Last week, dozens of people in balaclavas brandishing rifles stormed schoolyards with pictures of their dead comrades on clips, introducing Jabba’s new militant group and killing them in the final Israeli military raid. A month in honor of its founder and another gunslinger who was made.
“I hate to make my parents cry,” said Youssef Hosni Hamour, 28, a close friend of the group’s late Ezzedine Hammamura. “But I would gladly die a martyr.”
Similar scenes are playing out across the West Bank. From the Jenin refugee camp in the north to the city of Hebron in the south, a small group of disillusioned young Palestinians take up arms against Israel’s indefinite occupation and Palestinian political leaders despise them as collaborators with Israel.
Fluid and overlapping affiliations, these groups have no clear ideology and operate independently of traditional chains of command. Combatants from Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other groups attended a ceremony in Jabba last week.
Israel claims the escalated crackdown was meant to deter future attacks, but Palestinians say Israel’s brutal crackdown on the second Palestinian uprising 20 years ago was a testament to the aging Palestinian population. It argues that increased violence helped radicalize too-young men to recall functioning as a deterrent.
This new generation has grown up as a uniquely disabled person in a region torn apart by power struggles and divided by barriers and checkpoints. More than 60 Palestinians have been murdered in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since early 2023, after Israel’s most right-wing government in history took office. About half were militants killed fighting Israel, but the dead included stone throwers and bystanders, according to an Associated Press tally.
At least 15 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks during this period, including two Israelis who were shot dead in the town of Hawara, south of Jabba, on Sunday. In response, Israeli settlers set fire to dozens of buildings and also killed a Palestinian.
“It’s as if the new government has let go of the soldiers and the settlers and now they want to do whatever they want,” said Jamal Hariri, a member of the Java City Council. At a recent memorial service, children with black militant bands on their foreheads gathered around the militants, eager to catch a glimpse of their heroism.
“The results are what you see here,” Kariri added.
Last week, an Israeli military offensive in the northern city of Nablus sparked a shootout with Palestinian militants, killing 10. The raid targeted Lions Den, the most prominent of the emerging militant groups.
Israeli security officials say the military has closed the Nablus-based lion’s den in recent months, killing or arresting most of its key members. But they say his gunmen, who have been prowling the old town of Nablus and distributing clever telegram videos containing carefully crafted messages of heroic resistance, are now sparking new attacks throughout the region.
