A group of commanders in the Palestinian Authority security apparatus issued a letter threatening an insurrection in Judea and Samaria unless P.A. chief Mahmoud Abbas announces a “total and open confrontation” with Israel.
“If brother Abu Mazen [Abbas] does not issue a clear position within 24 hours, declaring an open confrontation with the occupation by all means, and does not renounce the statements of the Palestinian Authority to [U.S. Secretary of State Antony] Blinken the criminal …, we will not implement the instructions of the security apparatus,” the missive read, Arab media reported on Sunday.
Sunday’s ultimatum was issued by a group calling itself the Sons of Abu Jandal, which claims to have the backing of “dozens” of members of the P.A. security forces, mainly in the northern Samaria city of Jenin.
The Palestinian Authority has one of the largest per capita security forces in the world, armed and trained by the United States.
The demands to Abbas were published shortly after Blinken paid an unannounced visit to Ramallah to meet with the P.A. leader.
During the meeting, Blinken “expressed the commitment of the United States to working towards the realization of the Palestinians’ legitimate aspirations for the establishment of a Palestinian state,” according to State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
For his part, Abbas emphasized that his PLO is the “sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people” and that “true security and peace can only be achieved by ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land,” according to the P.A.’s official Wafa news agency.
Blinken suggested that the P.A. should play a “central role” in the Gaza Strip’s future if and when Israel’s goal of destroying Hamas is achieved, an anonymous senior State Department official told Reuters.
Abbas responded that Ramallah is only willing to retake control of the Gaza Strip “within the framework of a comprehensive political solution that includes all of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip,” Wafa reported.
Following Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre that killed more than 1,400 people in southern Israel, the Israel Defense Forces has been working to topple the terrorist organization’s rule in Gaza.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a U.S.-designated terrorist group affiliated with Abbas’s Fatah faction, has claimed its “fighters” joined Hamas on Oct. 7 and carried out attacks “behind enemy lines” in Israel.
“The Al-Aqsa [Martyrs] Brigades … carried out several operations [terrorist attacks] behind enemy lines as part of the ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’ battle [the terrorists’ name for the cross-border attack that began on Oct. 7], which constituted a crossroads in the history of our struggle with the occupier, and praise Allah, we killed and took captive occupation soldiers,” the terrorist group’s spokesman said on Oct. 9.
In propaganda videos distributed on social media, the Brigades claimed to have taken at least one “Zionist” hostage. The footage appears to show a blood-soaked civilian being taken to Gaza by an armed terrorist wearing a Fatah headband.
