By Ali Sawafta
TUBAS, West Bank (Reuters) – In the West Bank city of Tubas, the Palestinian Authority has rallied militants who have broken the war with Israel and defied its own rule, seeking to show they can help shape the future for Palestinians after. war in Gaza.
Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has sent troops to Tubas, saying it aims to eliminate lawlessness and reject Israel’s pretext to attack the city in occupied territory.
The militants’ enemies – Hamas and Islamic Jihad – say the PA is serving Israel’s agenda as Israel pursues fighters in the West Bank during Israel’s war in Gaza, sharpening old divisions between the militants and Abbas.
Residents of Tuba said clashes between militants and the PA this month involved heavy machine guns and bombs in some of the worst violence they can remember.
It highlights the precarious position of the authority that was formed in 1994 as a stepping stone to a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital, a prospect that seems as distant as ever, despite its international return. the final focus is a way to bring peace.
The PA controlled Gaza until 2007, when Hamas crushed forces loyal to Abbas, but is now empowered to open a patch of the West Bank in the eyes of Israeli forces.
As Israel insists on attacking Gaza to eliminate Hamas, the United States has said it wants to see the region and the West Bank united in the PA reformed and revitalized.
For Abbas, 88, the Tubas campaign is partly about weakening the grip of the militant enemy that has gained through the northern West Bank, in the Fatah movement that sees it as an Iranian-backed attempt to undermine their position, according to Fatah officials and security sources.
It is also about denying critics who see the PA as ineffective – a reputation that has overshadowed diplomatic contacts led by the United States through the role it may eventually play in Gaza, according to former PA security officials and analysts.
Governor Tubas Ahmed al-Asaad said the PA had decided to strike with an “iron fist” against what he described as lawlessness and anarchy.
Two PA security soldiers have been injured when their forces battled members of the “Batalion Tubas”, an armed group dominated by the Islamic Jihad faction, and detained at least three of its members, including its leader.
STANDOFF
Al-Asaad said the PA was responding to public concerns, giving the example of a bomb recently planted near a school – apparently in preparation for an attack on Israeli forces.
“We don’t want to – under the slogan of resistance or any other slogan – destroy our country and destroy the Tubas,” he said.
“Our approach is clear and it is the President’s approach: a peaceful approach, popular resistance and maintaining security and order,” he told Reuters in an interview.
Authorities have revamped operations in various areas, addressing some of the concerns expressed by aid-giving countries.
“Overall, the revitalization efforts have been well received,” the European diplomat said.
Saturday, dozens of PA security men surrounded the building near Tubas where two battalion militants were holed up, with one of them, Obada al-Masri, threatening to blow himself up, a source familiar with the incident said.
“We negotiated with him for almost five hours,” said his father, Abdel Majid al-Masri, who was called to the scene to help convince his son to surrender.
She said her son finally agreed after receiving assurances that he would be held in Tubas instead of another PA jail where he was previously imprisoned and subjected to mistreatment.
Masri expressed his relief that his son was captured by the PA instead of being killed by Israeli forces, who had also raided Tubas in search of militants and had previously jailed his son for three years.
His son had chosen “the route of struggle for the liberation of Palestine”, he said, rejecting PA accusations that members of the Battalion were involved in breaking the law.
Islamic Jihad condemned the operation, saying PA forces appeared to be aiming to eliminate resistance to Israel and the methods were no different.
LOW FRUITS
PA security forces were widely deployed, with checkpoints on the way to the city, when Reuters visited Tubas this week, but the city was calm.
Ghaith al-Omari, an expert on PA affairs at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that the Tubas campaign is a necessary effort by the PA to assert itself in parts of the West Bank where its control is “practically non-existent.”.
“The PA understands that no one can run Gaza and everyone says they can’t open the northern West Bank,” said Omari, who previously served as an adviser to the Palestinian president.
But he said one operation did not make a reputation, noting that Tubas represented “low-hanging fruit” and the militant group there was weaker than in Jenin, also in the north.
With US support, the 35,000 PA security forces were disbanded after the 2007 Hamas takeover of Gaza.
But the Washington Institute said in a July policy note that for the PA to assume governance in Gaza would require extensive recruitment, equipment, vetting, and training, a process it said would take years.
In the West Bank, the biggest problem for Omari is that the PA security forces are “really unpopular in the north”.
A September poll showed 89% of Palestinians in the West Bank want Abbas to step down, and Hamas has more support than Fatah there. Polls by the Palestinian Center for Policy Research and Surveys consistently show that Marwan Barghouti, the Israeli jailed Fatah leader, will win the presidential election.
Omari said: “To do effective security, you need that capability, but you also need credibility and legitimacy.”
