Mondoweiss Editors / October 31, 2022
Last week the Israeli military carried out massive assaults on Palestinian cities in the West Bank, targeting the Areen al-Usud (Lions’ Den) resistance group.
Key Developments
- Members of the “Lions’ Den” hand themselves in to the Palestinian Authority, after a large-scale Israeli military attack on Nablus, killing two members of the group.
- Two major operations targeting Jewish settlers and soldiers took place in Hebron/Al-Khalil and Jericho/Ariha. One settler was killed in Hebron, several other settlers and soldiers were reportedly injured in both operations.
- 10 Palestinians were killed in separate events:
- 25, Nablus Old City: Hamdi Sbeih Ramzi Qaim, 30, Ali Khaled Amr Antar, 26, Hamdi Mohammad Sabri Sharaf, 35, Wadee’ Sbeih Hawah, 31, and Mashaal Zahi Ahmad Baghdadi, 27
- 25, Nabi Saleh: Qusai Tamimi, 20
- 28, Huwara: Imad Abu Rashid, 47, and Ramzi Sami Zabara, 35
- Oct 29, Hebron: Mohammad Kamal Jabari, 35
- Oct: 30, Jericho: Barakat Moussa Odeh, 49
- Settlers ramp up attacks in the West Bank, vowing revenge after the shooting operation on the Kiryat Arba settlement in Hebron.
- The Israeli army announced an easing of the two-week siege on Nablus following what it claimed as “gains” made against the Lions’ Den, though many entrances and exits to the city remained closed.
- A new blockade was imposed on the city of Hebron following the shooting operation at Kiryat Arba.
- Israeli elections for the 25th Knesset are to take place on Tuesday, November 1.
In Depth: What’s next for The Lions’ Den?
Last week started with a massive overnight Israeli assault on the Old City of Nablus on October 25, undertaken with the sole purpose of breaking the back of Areen al-Usud (the Lions’ Den), one of the armed Palestinian resistance groups that has been at the forefront of the resurgence of armed resistance against Israeli colonialism.
One of the fighters killed in the operation was Wadee’ Hawah, who occupied a senior position within the Lions’ Den, and had also forged close relationships with other groups such as the armed resistance group in Jenin refugee camp, the Jenin Brigade.
Hawah was also notable for his strategy and intellectual maturity, widely known to have been the one responsible for writing the Lions’ Den statements, which gained popularity on social media. In an interview (Arabic) conducted with him by Ultrapal, Hawah said that the popular support for the nascent armed resistance movement was due to an elevation in political consciousness: “the fighters of the Lions’ Den are more interested in the war through culture than in a war by mere force of arms … because our war with them is a war over consciousness.”
After the assassination of Hawah and his comrades, the fate of the Lions’ Den remains uncertain. Just as quickly as the group had surged in popular support in the occupied West Bank, so have criticisms of its members and concerns over the group’s future, as the PA continued to prioritize getting Den members “off the streets.” The promise of safety and protection, both from death or imprisonment at the hands of Israeli forces, has proved persuasive for a number of Lions’ Den members. Some members of the group publicly handed their weapons over to the PA and entered PA-run jails, in exchange for alleged amnesty from Israel over their membership in the group. The PA also promised the young men future ranks within the PA’s own security apparatus — the same policy it enacted after the Second Intifada with fighters from the armed wing of the Fatah movement. Notably, one of the Palestinians to have been granted amnesty from that period was none other than Zakaria Zubeidi, one of the six Palestinian escapees during the Gilboa Prison break.
The decision by some of the Lion’s Den members to put down their arms and turn themselves into the PA has drawn some backlash from the Palestinian public, who criticized those members for handing themselves in. One of the Den members, Mahmoud al-Banna, wrote a statement on social media admonishing his detractors: “where were you when we were surrounded?…where were your rifles?…have you ever tried to sleep on the edge of a staircase, or in a dark alley?”
After the spread of rumors that the deal with the PA had been brokered by the Lions’ Den, the resistance group put out a statement denying the claims and asserting the right of any fighters to surrender: “whoever chooses to hand himself over is making his own choice, and we do not reproach him for it…we ask the citizenry to refrain from spreading rumors and insulting any fighters who have handed themselves in.”
In another statement later the next night on October 26, the group clarified that “the true fighters of the Lions’ Den have been split into three: those who were martyred and now reside in God’s paradise, those who were injured and whose limbs were severed so that the resistance may continue, and those who wait for the resolve of God’s soldiers.” The statement added that the Lions’ Den would continue and that the people must keep faith in the resistance.
Just as the fighting in Nablus reached a lull after the assassination at the start of the week, two operations against Israeli targets took place — a shooting operation against a car of Jewish settlers, killing one settler and injuring four others outside the illegal Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba in Hebron; and a car ramming attack outside of Jericho against a group of Israeli soldiers. The Palestinians who carried out both attacks were killed by Israeli soldiers who were on site.
