The newly formed armed groups inside the West Bank - from the Jenin Brigades that were established in September 2021, to the Lions' Den group that announced its existence in September 2022 - have grown significantly over the past year, not only in the number of members, but also in terms of public support. According to a source close to the Lions' Den and Jenin Brigades, their success has come through rooting themselves in the communities where they live.

The re-emergence of the West Bank resistance forces is perhaps the most important event in the Palestinian national movement in the past decade. The reason why the newly formed armed groups carry such significance is due to their ability to now open up a new front against the Zionist enemy, one which had been essentially eliminated from the field by the end of the Second Intifada in the early 2000’s. 

The US Biden administration, as well as the Zionist entity itself, both recognise the risks involved with the emergence of a strong and united armed resistance front in the West Bank. On March 31, 2022, the Israelis launched “Operation Break the Wave”, which resulted in countless massacres being visited on West Bank Palestinian communities, yet has failed to make a dent in the rise of the newly formed armed groups. Following this, earlier this year the US government began to involve itself heavily in the fight to counter the West Bank resistance.

Two high-profile security conferences have been conducted so far this year, one in Jordan’s Aqaba and another in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh. The security conferences were organized by the Biden administration, bringing together delegations from the Zionist entity, the Palestinian Authority (PA), the US, Jordan, and Egypt. The US plan has been to publicly propose a compromise between the PA and "Israel", but in reality, it seeks to have the PA use its security forces to crack down upon and disband the resistance groups in the West Bank. The US plot, known now as the “Fenzel plan”, was drafted by US Security Coordinator Michael Fenzel, seeking to convince the PA to set up a special task force to hunt down resistance fighters, while coordinating with the Zionist entity.

Civil society as a backbone for armed resistance groups 

Historically speaking, the Palestinian national movement has long used the public of Palestine as its backbone. When the All Palestine Government was set up by Egypt in 1948 - intended to govern the Gaza Strip initially - this model proved unsuccessful and quickly disintegrated, despite receiving recognition in the Arab League and being headed by former Grand Mufti of al-Quds, Hajj Amin al-Husseini. The Palestinian people were severely bruised from, not only the ethnic cleansing that some 800,000 of them suffered between 1947-9, but also the mass repression and massacres suffered under the British Mandate authorities between 1936-9, during the Arab Revolt. Despite the emergence of the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM) in 1951 and later the Fatah Party in 1959, it would take some time for the Palestinians to regroup, a process which was largely headed from within the diaspora.

When the strength of the Palestinian national movement began to pick up, specifically in the 1960s and culminating in the setting up of a base of operations in the Kingdom of Jordan by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), it used many tactics that were already in practice back in the years of the Arab Revolt in the 1930s. National symbols, connecting the people to the fellaheen (traditional agricultural Arab workers), the Arabic language, art, and other strong indicators of a shared identity were used early on as a means of connecting the masses of Palestinians.

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It also began to become apparent that support for civil society, families, and prominent communal leaders, was paramount to building a strong resistance movement. A large contributing factor to the successes of the late Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, who headed the PLO, were grounded in his ability to set up and maintain a neo-patrimonial order whereby he essentially controlled the resistance movement through financial means that he gained direct oversight of. More recently however, the Hamas Party has exemplified how important it is to connect with civil society, at a grassroots level, in order to succeed.

The precursor to Hamas, the Jam'iyyah Islamiyyah, during the 1980s, rooted itself by building what is now known as the Islamic civil society in Palestine. The Hamas organization, which was born in 1987, invested in everything from Mosques, to hospitals, orphanages, and charitable organizations that provide for the poor. Extensive research conducted on the Islamic civil society sector by Harvard scholar Sara Roy lays out the professionalism and functionality of such work in these fields. This work provided a backbone to the Hamas organization that enabled it to flourish in terms of popular support.

West Bank armed groups understand the necessity of charity and trust

As the United States government, along with "Israel", both work to pressure the Palestinian Authority to quash the West Bank resistance forces, it is imperative that the reputation of the armed groups among the local populations, around which the groups are based, remain high.

One of the potential tools that could be used to delegitimize the resistance groups in the northern West Bank, is the media. Through spreading propaganda about the resistance groups, attempting to paint them as common criminals and gangsters, bad-faith actors could work to encourage opposition from the Palestinian street. However, such tactics, which have been attempted on a small scale, have so far failed to convince people of this perspective.

According to a source who lives in Jenin refugee camp and maintains close connections with the Jenin Brigades fighters, the resistance have “established themselves as defenders and sons of the areas” in which the different groups operate. One of the means of increasing popular support is in holding rallies, public displays with resistance forces present, and through donations to the families of martyrs in the Jenin refugee camp. In addition to this, gifts and honorary placards will be given to families who have lost loved ones. The fighters will also prepare food for the people, which occurred especially during Ramadan this year. “We are all the Jenin Brigades, this is our mentality, everyone here is part of it, not just those who carry arms,” said the source.

Similarly, the Lions' Den group allegedly handed out $200 (USD) to each father of a martyr in Nablus’s Old City during its first ever parade, according to a source based in Nablus. The same source, who did not want to be named due to security concerns, claimed that this was their means of proving that the Lions' Den was not a group of poor people and that they had some wealth. This was a way of not only respecting the martyrs, but to show people in Nablus that they were choosing the path of resistance for moral reasons and not for money, explained the source. The group, being based out of the Old City of Nablus, where the majority of the people are poor, created the space for speculation as to whether the group was genuine or not at the beginning.

During Ramadan, the Lions' Den fighters even prepared Iftar meals for the people of the Old City, also entertaining children and uniting the community around the group. This sort of work has been integral to building trust. This popular support was demonstrated on April 8, when the group executed an informant who had collaborated with the Zionist regime - who admitted on tape to having given the Israelis information that led to the assassination of Lions' Den commanders. Even the family of 23-year-old deceased spy, Zuhair Relit, supported the Lions' Den in a public statement they released at the time. 

One key theme throughout all the armed groups, whether they be based in Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarm, or Ariha, they all make it explicitly clear that they fight to liberate their communities. An interesting element, rarely focused on, is that the Resistance groups there may be aligned with the Al-Qassam brigades of Hamas, the Quds brigades of the PIJ, the unofficial Fatah-party-affiliated Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, or others, but the groups do not directly answer to the political wings of these organizations. In the Gaza Strip, the resistance groups there do fall under the direct control and coordinate with the political wings of their parties, or movements, but in the West Bank the communication is much more limited. This has meant that factionalism is nearly non-existent between the armed formations there.

The main challenges are inter-party splits and disputes with some members of the Palestinian Authority’s security forces. The traditional Hamas, PIJ, PFLP and Fatah splits are not appearing. Even the Fatah Tanzeem militia forces, loyal to PA President Mahmoud Abbas, have in some areas been able to stay out of any sort of disputes and in other cases help resistance groups. The unity that is seen between the Palestinian people and the armed groups is what makes them strong, and work to build trust between the groups and the people is crucial. There are some communities that may fear hosting a resistance group and prefer it operate in other areas due to fear of the brutal Israeli incursions that will come as a result of it. If these people are going to be convinced to support armed groups in their areas, they need trust-building activities to demonstrate that the risk is worth it.