On Friday, 26 July, in a dramatic illustration of the importance of the popular cradle of the resistance, the Palestinian masses of Tulkarem liberated Mohammed Jaber, Abu Shujaa, from an attempted arrest or assassination by Palestinian Authority “security forces” that besieged and invaded Martyr Thabet Thabet hospital. Abu Shujaa, a commander in the Tulkarem Brigade of Saraya al-Quds, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement.
Abu Shujaa, 26 years old, previously survived multiple assassination attempts and is being pursued both by the Zionist occupation forces as well as by the Palestinian Authority forces, carrying out the mandate of “security coordination” with the Zionist regime. PA forces entered the hospital, throwing tear gas canisters at Palestinian civilians coming to protect Abu Shujaa, but the mass popular presence at the hospital safely escorted Abu Shujaa to safety, carrying him on their shoulders and chanting for him and the resistance. The people of Tulkarem, mobilized around the hospital in massive numbers, with masses of Palestinian women and men shouting and confronting the PA forces directly and protecting Abu Shujaa, a beloved resistance leader, in a march led by the mothers of the martyrs.
Abu Shujaa defies the assassin
In March 2023, PA forces opened fire at a group of resistance fighters, including Abu Shujaa, in one assassination attempt. One month later, in April 2023, occupation forces declared that they had successfully assassinated Abu Shujaa in a drone strike, only for him to re-emerge several days later at a funeral for the 14 martyrs the Zionist regime had killed in the battle in Nour Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem, a center of the burgeoning armed resistance in the West Bank of occupied Palestine.
“Our message is that we have challenged the occupation and here we are still alive. We are walking on the path of the martyrs, no matter how many of us they assassinate, this situation will not end, God willing. We are on the path of the martyrs, until victory……I send a salute and a message to all the children and all the fighters in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the diaspora, that we will not let you down God willing, we will stay at the best of your expectations. We hope from all the honorable ones to not let us down and to remain on the path of the martyrs, our martyrs. We thank all the regions in the West Bank and its camps: Jenin camp, Balata camp, Far’a, Dheisheh, Bethlehem. We will remain at the best of their expectations, God willing,” Abu Shujaa said after his legendary re-emergence.
Abu Shujaa has been detained and imprisoned on multiple occasions by the Palestinian Authority and “Israel” since the age of 17; his younger brother, Mahmoud, was martyred when he was killed by Zionist forces invading the Nour Shams refugee camp.
The Al-Qassam Brigades of Tulkarem, Hamas’ armed wing, issued a statement, warning the PA forces to leave Tulkarem and end their attacks on the resistance. “We are fighting against two occupations: the Palestinian Authority and the occupation forces…Any attempt to capture our fighters by the [Palestinian] Authority forces from Tulkarem to Jenin will be met with a severe response. Any attempt to defuse a planted explosive for the occupation forces will be met with a response. This means you are collaborating with the occupation.”
The attack on Abu Shujaa, defeated by the unity of the Palestinian masses and the armed resistance, came only months after Ahmad Abu al-Ful and Motasim al-Arif, two leaders in the Tulkarem Brigade, were assassinated by PA security coordination forces. Indeed, al-Arif was martyred as the PA attempted to kidnap Abu Shujaa on 3 April.
From Tulkarem to Tubas
It was also followed shortly thereafter by PA security coordination forces storming the city of Tubas in order to kidnap or assassinate Omar Meselmani, a fighter with the Tubas Brigade of Saraya al-Quds who is also pursued by the occupation forces. They opened fire on Meselmani and his companions, failing to capture Omar, but detaining his brother, Hamed Maselmani, a former Palestinian prisoner who served seven years in occupation prisons. He was released later in the evening after being beaten by PA forces.
Today’s popular victory in Tulkarem only underlines the unity of the Palestinian masses and the armed resistance and the ways in which the resistance is fostered and nurtured by the masses, what is often referred to as the popular cradle of the resistance. It also underlines the reality of what the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank represents, only weeks after PA officials, including PA President Mahmoud Abbas, blamed the Palestinian resistance for the Zionist massacres and genocide in Gaza.
Rising resistance vs. “security coordination” Authority
At a time when the armed resistance in the West Bank is escalating the struggle, while the Zionist forces are conducting a genocide in Gaza resisted by the strength of the Palestinian armed resistance, Palestinian unity should be more essential than ever. Since the beginning of Al-Aqsa Flood and the Zionist genocide on 7 October 2023, Palestinian resistance forces in the West Bank have carried out 1,533 shooting operations, 678 explosive operations, 33 stabbing operations and 19 run-over operations targeting settlers and soldiers.
While the unity of the people and the resistance was strikingly visible in Tulkarem and Tubas today, and in Bethlehem, where youth marched to confront the PA, the Authority itself continues to represent a narrow sector of the Palestinian bourgeoisie that seeks to cement its marginal privileges through service to and collaboration with the Zionist regime and US imperialism.
“Security coordination” with the Zionist occupation is built into the Oslo accords; the Palestinian Authority has existed only to suppress the Palestinian resistance and act as an agent of the occupation, not to confront the occupation. For decades now, members of the PA security forces who are loyal to the Palestinian people have turned away from their orders to engage in security coordination and instead joined the Resistance to fight for liberation.
PA imprisonment and the road to liberation
The Palestinian Authority prisons are themselves a revolving door, where resistance fighters, leaders and strugglers are pursued by PA forces and invading occupiers, released from one imprisonment only to be abducted into another. Case after case illustrate this: that of Basil al-Araj and his comrades, abducted and imprisoned by the Palestinian Authority and then by the occupation forces, the engaged intellectual and the resistance fighter who fought until the moment of his martyrdom. That of Ahmad Sa’adat and his comrades, leaders of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, imprisoned by the Palestinian Authority under US and British guard, until they were abducted by the Zionist regime in a violent assault. That of Nizar Banat, the tireless fighter against corruption and for a principled, unified resistance, assassinated by PA forces in 2021. That of Mahmoud Tawalbeh, one of the leaders of the 2002 Battle of Jenin, arrested by the PA at the orders of the occupation, who then planned and failed to assassinate him by bombing the prison. That of Musab Shtayyeh, the 30-year-old Palestinian resistance fighter of the Lion’s Den and the Al-Qassam Brigades, kidnapped one year ago today and held by the PA forces as a political prisoner despite three orders for his release, and his fellow political prisoners in PA prisons, brothers and sisters in arms with the nearly 10,000 Palestinians jailed in the dungeons of the occupier.
As we noted previously: The only true road to Palestinian national unity comes through resistance and confrontation, led by those who fight for Palestinian liberation, and it cannot include those who imprison, assassinate and betray the people and the resistance for the benefit of the occupiers and imperialists.
The crimes of the Palestinian Authority are not simply independent “human rights violations” or “political detention” targeting rival forces. They are carried out as part and parcel of the Oslo framework that created the PA as a subcontractor for the occupation; and the current demands to attack the rising resistance in the West Bank and throughout Palestine from the river to the sea as part and parcel of the US-Zionist genocide in Gaza. These attacks are the responsibility of Israel, the United States, Canada, the European Union and all parties involved in creating, sustaining and propping up the “security coordination” framework, which benefits only the occupier and colonizer at the expense of the Palestinian people.
The PA and its funders and trainers must be held accountable for its ongoing betrayal of the Palestinian people and its collaboration with the occupation regime and Zionist colonialism. The Oslo project is backed by Zionism, imperialism and reactionary regimes – and it must and will fall on the road to the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea, led by the unity of the people and the resistance.
Further, the popular cradle of the resistance, as witnessed so vividly today in Tulkarem, in Gaza, in south Lebanon, in the millions who pour into the streets weekly in Yemen to demand even greater escalation, reflects the unity and deep alliance of the masses and the Resistance, a fundamental necessity for people’s war and for victory over the occupier. At this moment, it is critical for those of us in the international movement for Palestine to build the international popular cradle of the Resistance, to escalate our movement, reject all efforts to label and criminalize the resistance as “terrorist” and unify to confront repression, genocide, Zionism and imperialism.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! Victory for Palestine!
Palestinian students speak for the Resistance
We republish below a joint statement issued today by the student movement at Birzeit University, translated by the Resistance News Network. The statement was signed by all of the student blocs except the supporters of Fateh:
The Student Movement at Birzeit University:
In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
“People of the university of martyrs, O all the masses of our people.”
We send our greetings to our steadfast people in Gaza, to the heroes of the tunnels who write our glory every day, to the makers of our dignity and honor, to those who endured and challenged the prison and the jailer, our brave prisoners. To our fighters in the West Bank, Al-Quds, and the occupied lands, to those who adhere to the path of resistance and revolution, to the bravest among us all, the hero of the Brigade, Abu Shujaa [“Father of the Brave”].
On the 293rd day of the genocide against the Palestinian people, the Security Forces of the [Palestinian] Authority continue to participate in our extermination, oppression, and repression. As the martyr Basil Al-Araj said, “The Palestinian Authority participates in our extermination.” In light of what happened today, we affirm the following:
First: Since October 7th, the Security Forces of the [Palestinian] Authority continue to practice the most heinous forms of submission and normalization with the zionst entity and align with its vision. Those who demanded accountability and honored the tunnel fighters after what happened on October 7 were met with suppressed marches, and many fighters were killed at their hands, some handed over to the cowardly entity and others tortured.
Second: We condemn this disgraceful behavior and salute the courage of our people in Tulkarem who rose to prevent the Security Forces from arresting Commander Abu Shujaa, who has survived several times under showers of bullets and today survives with a human shield led by the mothers of the martyrs and supported by the people, after being besieged in Thabet Thabet Hospital.
Third: All the forces and activities of our people, and all the honorable members and affiliates of the Authority and its Security Forces, are called today to unite in rejection of the conspiracy against our people and to confront the plans that the zionists, Americans, and their allies are weaving to break the resistance with Palestinian hands, unfortunately. There is no excuse today for those who choose to continue betting on the absurd and treacherous path of negotiations.
For we, from the heart of the university of martyrs, the university of prisoners, call on the members of the Security Forces to align with the true direction with the compass of the people. Our choice is resistance and the exclusion of those who do not believe in it. Be among the sons of Abu Jandal* and follow the path of resistance and nothing else. Those who detach from their people today will regret it tomorrow.
* Abu Jandal, Yousef Ahmad Raihan, was a patriotic PA security officer who was one of the leaders of the 2002 Battle of Jenin and has become a symbol of those who reject “security coordination” with the occupier.
