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Wednesday, October 18, 2023 7:03:37 PM
How the death of a teen Palestinian fighter inspired a Gen Z militia in the West Bank
"How the death of a teen Palestinian fighter inspired a Gen Z militia in the West Bank | SBS Dateline"
In the occupied West Bank, a small militant group called the Lions’ Den has built a strong following and its influence among young Palestinians extends beyond the digital realm.
The killing of Ibrahim al-Nabulsi, a commander of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, by Israeli forces gave rise to a new militant group called the Lions' Den, which has been responsible for the surge in clashes with Israeli soldiers and settlers. Credit: Nasser Ishtayeh/SOPA Images; Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP via Getty Images
Watch Dateline documentary Making A Militant Tuesday 17 October, 9.30pm on SBS or stream via SBS on Demand
https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/news-series/dateline
After the death of their son Ibrahim, Huda and Alaa al-Nabulsi turned their family home into a shrine in his honour, filled with his photographs and belongings.
Visitors come from across Nablus, a Palestinian city in the West Bank, and overseas. Among treasured items are Ibrahim’s prayer rug that he prayed on for the last time and a gas mask covered in blood that he wore during a fatal shootout with Israeli forces.
“Of course, I never wished for him to leave me,” his mother Huda said. “But at the same time, Ibrahim chose the path of glory, and Allah blessed him with martyrdom.”
Ibrahim al-Nabulsi was an 18-year-old Palestinian fighter killed on 9 August last year during an Israeli Defence Forces raid in the West Bank.
His death inspired the formation of a new militant group, the Lions’ Den, which is made up of young men in their teens and 20s and has claimed responsibility for a wave of attacks against Israeli soldiers and settlers that the West Bank hadn’t seen in decades.
Revered as heroes by many young Palestinians, the Lions’ Den amassed a large following on messaging app Telegram and social media platform TikTok, with people posting live streams of attacks, profiles of fighters, and even pop songs.
There has been no reported connection between the Lions’ Den and a shock attack on Israel .. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/armed-paragliders-and-a-staggering-security-fail-how-did-the-hamas-attack-on-israel-happen/1oxo0uxp4 .. from the Gaza Strip launched by Palestinian group Hamas last week.
But Hamas has issued a call to arms to the ‘rebellious youths’ in the West Bank, where hostilities between Palestinians and Israelis have escalated in recent years and became one of the reasons cited for Hamas’ military assault into Israeli territory.
READ MORE What is the Palestinian group Hamas and why has it attacked Israel now?
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/what-is-the-palestinian-group-hamas/wd9ww0f6y
Who was Ibrahim al-Nabulsi?
Located 50 kilometres north of Jerusalem, the old city of Nablus has been at the heart of the Palestinian struggle for nearly 100 years. Its citizens were among the first to take up arms against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the deadly Intifadas, as the Palestinian uprisings have been known, of the 1980s and 2000s.
Ibrahim al-Nabulsi photographed on 2 April 2022, in the West Bank city of Nablus. Credit: AFP via Getty Images
A third child in the family, Ibrahim was born in the West Bank in the midst of the Second Intifada. He grew up amid a constant Israeli presence. In the West Bank, limited job prospects, house demolitions, military checkpoints and violent skirmishes are part of everyday life. The average age there is just under 22.
Unlike Gaza, which is under Hamas control and subjected to a blockade, Nablus is under control of the Palestinian Authority, the governing body in parts of the West Bank.
Like many of his generation, Ibrahim was critical of the Palestinian Authority, which was seen by many as ineffective as hope for peace and a Palestinian state waned.
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[Insert: Vengeance Is Not a Policy
"There Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive.
"Omar and Tlaib Are Condemned in the US for Saying What Prominent Israelis Are Saying
[...]
More than anything else, the Oslo Accords of the 1990s reflected a new Israeli government strategy of relying on what it hoped would be the tractability and greed of PLO leaders, rather than on the relative passivity previous governments had (mistakenly) associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Yasser Arafat and the leadership of the PLO were allowed to return to Palestine from their exile in Tunisia with the understanding that they would suppress popular hostility to Israel in return for a state, or a statelet, they would rule. But Israel more or less doomed that idea by refusing to allocate enough authority to Arafat and his “interim” government to enable it to build legitimacy among Palestinians.
Since the signing of the Oslo Accords, the continued expansion of settlements in the West Bank, the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and the explosion of violence associated with the Second Intifada (which began in 2000) have destroyed any prospect of a negotiated two-state solution—the once abhorred and then widely embraced, but no longer attainable, vision of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that would provide Palestinians with sufficient realization of their aspirations to end the Arab-Israeli conflict.
In 2002 and 2003, Sharon’s government put Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah under siege and then “transferred” him to France, where he died the following year.
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[Again see: And so it was done.
WASHINGTON: Winston S. Churchill III, grandson of the famed British prime minister, recalled last October at the National Press Club here a telling encounter he had had in 1973 with the hawkish Ariel Sharon, now the Israeli prime minister, about Zionist objectives. “What is to become of the Palestinians?” Churchill asked. “We’ll make a pastrami sandwich of them,” Sharon said. Churchill responded, “What?” “Yes, we’ll insert a strip of Jewish settlements in between the Palestinians, and then another strip of Jewish settlements right across the West Bank, so that in 25 years’ time, neither the United Nations nor the United States, nobody, will be able to tear it apart.”
http://www.mafhoum.com/press4/116P51.htm
Again, in 1998 shortly before being elected prime minister, Sharon wrote: “Everyone has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements because everything we take now will stay ours … Everything we don’t grab will go to them.”
https://www.bangordailynews.com/2010/06/13/opinion/israels-pastrami-sandwich-policy/]
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173023331
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In 2005, hoping to rid itself of the headache of having responsibility for Gaza’s large, impoverished, and hostile refugee population and to isolate it from the West Bank, Israel evacuated .. https://www.haaretz.com/2015-08-06/ty-article/the-gaza-disengagement-as-reported-by-haaretz/0000017f-f6de-d887-a7ff-fefe870a0000 .. its military and 9,000 settlers from the Gaza Strip. It also refused to negotiate with Palestinian representatives about any arrangements for relations between the strip and Israel following the withdrawal.
When Hamas then won the Palestinian legislative elections of 2006, Israel, with U.S. support .. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/04/gaza200804 , responded by a failed coup attempt to forcibly replace it with rule of Gaza by Fatah. Hamas then defeated Fatah forces in Gaza and secured its political ascendancy there, leading Israel to seal off Gazans from Israel, even as some official Israeli maps .. https://www.gov.il/en/departments/general/israel-within-boundaries-and-ceasefire-lines .. refrained, and still refrain, from designating Gaza as outside of its international borders.
Gaza became a resource-starved and overpopulated open-air prison, forced to rely on Israel for food, water, electricity, trade, mail delivery, access to fishing, medical care, or contact with the outside world. From then on, Israel has effectively treated Hamas as the prisoner organization responsible for preventing the inmates—none of whom have been placed on trial, and all of whom have life sentences—from harming Israel or Israelis.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173028605]
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READ MORE The Israeli-Palestinian conflict: a brief history
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/the-israeli-palestinian-conflict-a-brief-history/kzuibqf33
“From a young age, he was in love with his country, seeking freedom for his people,” his father Alaa said. “This idea was born out of what he witnessed, the actions of the occupation in real life.”
In 2021, Ibrahim and three other young Palestinians, Ashraf Mubaslat, Mohammad al-Dakhil, and Adham Mabrouka, formed an armed resistance movement called al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades.
While claiming no political affiliation, the group launched a number of non-fatal attacks targeting Israeli military and settlers. In February 2022, three of its leaders were killed in a daylight raid by Israeli forces.
Ibrahim went into hiding and took to social media vowing to avenge his friends. His posts reach hundreds of thousands of people on TikTok and Telegram. For a while, ‘the Lion of Nablus’, as he was nicknamed, evaded arrest attempts and defiantly appeared at the funerals of his fellow fighters.
After nearly six months, the Israeli forces tracked Ibrahim and two other fighters to an apartment in central Nablus, killing all three in a dramatic gun battle.
In his statement, then-prime minister of Israel Yair Lapid called Ibrahim a terrorist whose killing was ‘another step in our uncompromising fight against terrorism.’
Over 10,000 Palestinians attended Ibrahim’s funeral. The images of his mother, walking in the crowd and brandishing his rifle, spread across social media.
“When Ibrahim was martyred, I said Ibrahim didn’t die. If Ibrahim is gone, another 100,000 Ibrahims will appear,” she said.
Alaa al-Nabulsi in his home in Nablus that he and his wife turned into a museum of his son Ibrahim. Credit: SBS Dateline
The rise of the Lions’ Den
In the wake of Ibrahim’s death, a group of young men in Nablus announced the formation of the Lions’ Den.
They began a spree of ad hoc attacks targeting Israeli soldiers, military checkpoints, and Israeli settlers. In a matter of weeks, Lion’s Den members were involved in 34 shootings and killed one Israeli soldier.
In response to surging violence, the Israel Defence Forces ramped up what they called counter-terrorism operations in Nablus and the Jenin refugee camp, about an hour’s drive north of Nablus. And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government has accelerated the expansion of Israeli settlements .. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/australia-joins-uk-and-canada-in-calling-for-a-stop-to-new-settlements-in-the-west-bank/zuu19cjra ..
in the West Bank in a move that was condemned by the United Nations and foreign governments.
[Palestinian gunman opens fire on bus in Jerusalem, wounding 8
August, 2022 - https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=169677089]
A Palestinian youth holds a rock as he faces an Israeli military vehicle during an Israeli forces raid in Nablus in February. Source: AFP / Zain Jaafar /via Getty Images
The past two years have been the deadliest for Palestinians in the West Bank in more than a decade. According to United Nations data .. https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties , 342 Palestinians, including 75 children, were killed there since the start of 2022, mostly in Jenin and Nablus. Some 30 Israeli soldiers were killed in clashes with Palestinian militia and protesters in the West Bank.
READ MORE Israeli troops start withdrawing from Jenin after large military operation
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/israeli-troops-start-withdrawing-after-biggest-military-operation-in-years/hexunf2kt
On the day Hamas launched its unprecedented attack on Israel from Gaza with rocket strikes and killings of civilians, the group’s military commander Mohammed Deif cited the violence in the West Bank as one of the reasons.
“Hundreds (of our people) have been martyred and injured this year due to the occupation’s crimes,” his statement from 7 October read. “Our calls for a humanitarian (prisoners) exchange were met with refusal, and daily violations continue in the West Bank.”
Hamas is a Palestinian military and political group that has gained power in the Gaza Strip since winning legislative elections there in 2006. Its stated aim is to establish a Palestinian state while refusing to recognise Israel’s right to exist.
Hamas, in its entirety, is designated as a terrorist organisation by countries including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Some countries list only its military wing as a terrorist group.
More than 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, were killed and 3,400 were injured by Hamas militants in the October attack, the deadliest in Israel’s history. Israel said it will continue its retaliatory bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip .. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/no-humanitarian-exceptions-to-gaza-siege-until-all-hamas-hostages-are-freed-israel-says/mb81gmqi7 .. until all its hostages are freed .. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/no-humanitarian-exceptions-to-gaza-siege-until-all-hamas-hostages-are-freed-israel-says/mb81gmqi7 . The Gaza health ministry says at least 2,750 Palestinians have been killed and 9,700 wounded by Israeli airstrikes.
In what many see as a preparation for a ground offensive, Israel’s military told 1.1. million Palestinians – half of Gaza’s population - to move south. The only passage into Egypt remains closed.
Amid the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza, the Lions’ Den has called its supporters to march in solidarity with Gaza and engaged in small-arms clashes with Israeli security forces, according to a US-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War.
Huda al-Nabulsi waving a rifle at the funeral of her son, Ibrahim, and two other young Palestinians killed during the raid by Israeli forces in Nablus. Source: Anadolu / Getty Images
There’s also been an increase in attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank by Israeli soldiers and settlers. At least 51 have reportedly been killed since 7 October.
READ MORE Australia will again use the term 'Occupied Palestinian Territories'. Here's why
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/australia-will-again-use-the-term-occupied-palestinian-territories-whats-the-significance/d43jq2xne
Terrorists or heroes?
To his parents and some Palestinians, Ibrahim is a hero and a martyr, a role model and a symbol of resistance. And so are the Lions’ Den fighters.
But for Israelis, they are considered as terrorists without a clear ideology and youngsters seeking online fame.
“Yes, they are launching attacks. They are killing Israelis. But what's the end goal?” said Alon Ben-David, an Israeli defence correspondent and military analyst. “I don't think there is any. They just want to be what every child wants to be today: a web influencer.”
“There is no desire [by Israeli forces] to kill anyone. But when there is resistance from the terrorists, eventually, it ends with their death,” he said.
Israeli military analyst Alon Ben-David says the Lions' Den have no ideology and are engaged in "social media motivated terrorism" Credit: SBS Dateline
Israeli officials have labelled the group ‘a terror squad’.
Nablus mayor Sami Ahmed Hijjawi, who is aligned with the ruling Palestinian Authority, blames the instability on Israel and its encroachment on the Palestinian territories. But he disapproves of the Lions’ Den’s methods.
“We do not have the force and the power to fight Israel militarily,” he said. “Resistance against Israel should be organised, should have a political view, should have a political background, not only shooting and killing and fighting.”
‘A place with no religion or politics’
Today, the presence of the Lions’ Den is everywhere in Nablus.
Lions' Den merchandise is sold in the markets. Billboards, posters and murals carry the faces of the slain fighters, who are venerated as heroes and martyrs. Of all, Ibrahim is the most prominent.
His grave has become a site of pilgrimage for boys, not much younger than he was at the time of his death, dreaming of becoming resistance fighters like him one day.
Across Nablus, the Lions' Den fighters are revered as heroes and martyrs, and young boys dream of becoming resistance fighters like them. Credit: SBS Dateline
‘If you went to the street tonight, you will find children having plastic guns and [saying] ‘Oh, I’m Wadi (Wadi al-Houh was killed in October 2022), I’m Ibrahim.’ The Lions’ Den leaders,” said Nablus resident Basel Kittaneh. “They are pretending themselves like them. This is childhood here.”
Kittaneh used to be a militant.
A former member of the military wing of Hamas, he fought in the Second Intifada and spent 15 years in jail for his involvement.
"I came back from the prison. It's the day that I was born again. It's the day that I came back from the grave," he said.
He returned to Nablus with a dream of doing good for his community without violence. He and his brother run a youth hostel and a bar in the old city. It’s a place that offers young people a peaceful and tolerant venue that runs events and helps organise tours in the old city. Anyone is welcome as long as they don’t talk about politics and religion.
“If you want to be a hero, you have to resist, you have to fight. It’s not right that we’re raising our sons for that.”
Dateline is an Australian award-winning international documentary series. Each week Dateline scours the globe to bring you a world of daring stories. Read more about Dateline
Have a story or comment? Contact Us .. https://help.sbs.com.au/hc/en-au/requests/new
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/dateline/article/how-the-death-of-a-teen-palestinian-fighter-inspired-a-gen-z-militia-in-the-west-bank/versb7f5k
See again: While whites of the world in general apologize Israel's generations of oppressive violence and cruelty while condemning (as it should) Hamas's
abject brutality let our thoughts drift to colonial Africa and particularly oppressive regimes which have died there. And to early America.
"WHY? It's rock bottom -- Why did Hamas attack, and why now? What does it hope to gain?"
[...]
[Insert October 17, 2023: Supporting Palestinian rights is antisemitic because Israel wants it to be
[...] Antisemitism predates the state of Israel by about two millennia, and ending the occupation won’t make it disappear. But if describing the oppressive actions of the Jewish state is “feeding antisemitism,” then demanding the end of these acts could reduce the heat.
P - That should also give comfort to diaspora Jews, who might have family in Israel.
P - Far from offensive, criticizing the Israeli government should be viewed as an act of love that could help make everyone more safe and more free. The freedom and safety of Jewish Israelis and the freedom and safety of Christian and Muslim Palestinians are not mutually exclusive — in fact, they are secured through co-existence.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173024899]
[...]
Nowhere is that blindness more apparent then in the constant, puerile need to critique Mandela's turn toward violence. The impulse is old. "Why Won't Mandela Renounce Violence? .. http://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/21/opinion/why-won-t-mandela-renounce-violence.html " asked a New York Times column in 1990. Is that what we said to Savimbi? To Mobutu?
Malcolm X understood:
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If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.
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Martin Luther King Jr. agreed .. http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0115-13.htm :
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As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems ... But, they asked, what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, my own government.
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As did Mandela. Offered the chance to be free by the avowed white supremacist P.W. Botha if he would renounce violence, Mandela replied .. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/09/nelson-mandela-demanded-justice-before-forgiving-white-south-africans.html , “Let him renounce violence.”
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173043426
"How the death of a teen Palestinian fighter inspired a Gen Z militia in the West Bank | SBS Dateline"
In the occupied West Bank, a small militant group called the Lions’ Den has built a strong following and its influence among young Palestinians extends beyond the digital realm.
The killing of Ibrahim al-Nabulsi, a commander of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, by Israeli forces gave rise to a new militant group called the Lions' Den, which has been responsible for the surge in clashes with Israeli soldiers and settlers. Credit: Nasser Ishtayeh/SOPA Images; Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP via Getty Images
Watch Dateline documentary Making A Militant Tuesday 17 October, 9.30pm on SBS or stream via SBS on Demand
https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/news-series/dateline
After the death of their son Ibrahim, Huda and Alaa al-Nabulsi turned their family home into a shrine in his honour, filled with his photographs and belongings.
Visitors come from across Nablus, a Palestinian city in the West Bank, and overseas. Among treasured items are Ibrahim’s prayer rug that he prayed on for the last time and a gas mask covered in blood that he wore during a fatal shootout with Israeli forces.
“Of course, I never wished for him to leave me,” his mother Huda said. “But at the same time, Ibrahim chose the path of glory, and Allah blessed him with martyrdom.”
Ibrahim al-Nabulsi was an 18-year-old Palestinian fighter killed on 9 August last year during an Israeli Defence Forces raid in the West Bank.
His death inspired the formation of a new militant group, the Lions’ Den, which is made up of young men in their teens and 20s and has claimed responsibility for a wave of attacks against Israeli soldiers and settlers that the West Bank hadn’t seen in decades.
Revered as heroes by many young Palestinians, the Lions’ Den amassed a large following on messaging app Telegram and social media platform TikTok, with people posting live streams of attacks, profiles of fighters, and even pop songs.
There has been no reported connection between the Lions’ Den and a shock attack on Israel .. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/armed-paragliders-and-a-staggering-security-fail-how-did-the-hamas-attack-on-israel-happen/1oxo0uxp4 .. from the Gaza Strip launched by Palestinian group Hamas last week.
But Hamas has issued a call to arms to the ‘rebellious youths’ in the West Bank, where hostilities between Palestinians and Israelis have escalated in recent years and became one of the reasons cited for Hamas’ military assault into Israeli territory.
READ MORE What is the Palestinian group Hamas and why has it attacked Israel now?
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/what-is-the-palestinian-group-hamas/wd9ww0f6y
Who was Ibrahim al-Nabulsi?
Located 50 kilometres north of Jerusalem, the old city of Nablus has been at the heart of the Palestinian struggle for nearly 100 years. Its citizens were among the first to take up arms against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the deadly Intifadas, as the Palestinian uprisings have been known, of the 1980s and 2000s.
Ibrahim al-Nabulsi photographed on 2 April 2022, in the West Bank city of Nablus. Credit: AFP via Getty Images
A third child in the family, Ibrahim was born in the West Bank in the midst of the Second Intifada. He grew up amid a constant Israeli presence. In the West Bank, limited job prospects, house demolitions, military checkpoints and violent skirmishes are part of everyday life. The average age there is just under 22.
Unlike Gaza, which is under Hamas control and subjected to a blockade, Nablus is under control of the Palestinian Authority, the governing body in parts of the West Bank.
Like many of his generation, Ibrahim was critical of the Palestinian Authority, which was seen by many as ineffective as hope for peace and a Palestinian state waned.
------------
[Insert: Vengeance Is Not a Policy
"There Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive.
"Omar and Tlaib Are Condemned in the US for Saying What Prominent Israelis Are Saying
[...]
More than anything else, the Oslo Accords of the 1990s reflected a new Israeli government strategy of relying on what it hoped would be the tractability and greed of PLO leaders, rather than on the relative passivity previous governments had (mistakenly) associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Yasser Arafat and the leadership of the PLO were allowed to return to Palestine from their exile in Tunisia with the understanding that they would suppress popular hostility to Israel in return for a state, or a statelet, they would rule. But Israel more or less doomed that idea by refusing to allocate enough authority to Arafat and his “interim” government to enable it to build legitimacy among Palestinians.
Since the signing of the Oslo Accords, the continued expansion of settlements in the West Bank, the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and the explosion of violence associated with the Second Intifada (which began in 2000) have destroyed any prospect of a negotiated two-state solution—the once abhorred and then widely embraced, but no longer attainable, vision of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that would provide Palestinians with sufficient realization of their aspirations to end the Arab-Israeli conflict.
In 2002 and 2003, Sharon’s government put Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah under siege and then “transferred” him to France, where he died the following year.
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[Again see: And so it was done.
WASHINGTON: Winston S. Churchill III, grandson of the famed British prime minister, recalled last October at the National Press Club here a telling encounter he had had in 1973 with the hawkish Ariel Sharon, now the Israeli prime minister, about Zionist objectives. “What is to become of the Palestinians?” Churchill asked. “We’ll make a pastrami sandwich of them,” Sharon said. Churchill responded, “What?” “Yes, we’ll insert a strip of Jewish settlements in between the Palestinians, and then another strip of Jewish settlements right across the West Bank, so that in 25 years’ time, neither the United Nations nor the United States, nobody, will be able to tear it apart.”
http://www.mafhoum.com/press4/116P51.htm
Again, in 1998 shortly before being elected prime minister, Sharon wrote: “Everyone has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements because everything we take now will stay ours … Everything we don’t grab will go to them.”
https://www.bangordailynews.com/2010/06/13/opinion/israels-pastrami-sandwich-policy/]
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173023331
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In 2005, hoping to rid itself of the headache of having responsibility for Gaza’s large, impoverished, and hostile refugee population and to isolate it from the West Bank, Israel evacuated .. https://www.haaretz.com/2015-08-06/ty-article/the-gaza-disengagement-as-reported-by-haaretz/0000017f-f6de-d887-a7ff-fefe870a0000 .. its military and 9,000 settlers from the Gaza Strip. It also refused to negotiate with Palestinian representatives about any arrangements for relations between the strip and Israel following the withdrawal.
When Hamas then won the Palestinian legislative elections of 2006, Israel, with U.S. support .. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/04/gaza200804 , responded by a failed coup attempt to forcibly replace it with rule of Gaza by Fatah. Hamas then defeated Fatah forces in Gaza and secured its political ascendancy there, leading Israel to seal off Gazans from Israel, even as some official Israeli maps .. https://www.gov.il/en/departments/general/israel-within-boundaries-and-ceasefire-lines .. refrained, and still refrain, from designating Gaza as outside of its international borders.
Gaza became a resource-starved and overpopulated open-air prison, forced to rely on Israel for food, water, electricity, trade, mail delivery, access to fishing, medical care, or contact with the outside world. From then on, Israel has effectively treated Hamas as the prisoner organization responsible for preventing the inmates—none of whom have been placed on trial, and all of whom have life sentences—from harming Israel or Israelis.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173028605]
----------
READ MORE The Israeli-Palestinian conflict: a brief history
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/the-israeli-palestinian-conflict-a-brief-history/kzuibqf33
“From a young age, he was in love with his country, seeking freedom for his people,” his father Alaa said. “This idea was born out of what he witnessed, the actions of the occupation in real life.”
In 2021, Ibrahim and three other young Palestinians, Ashraf Mubaslat, Mohammad al-Dakhil, and Adham Mabrouka, formed an armed resistance movement called al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades.
While claiming no political affiliation, the group launched a number of non-fatal attacks targeting Israeli military and settlers. In February 2022, three of its leaders were killed in a daylight raid by Israeli forces.
Ibrahim went into hiding and took to social media vowing to avenge his friends. His posts reach hundreds of thousands of people on TikTok and Telegram. For a while, ‘the Lion of Nablus’, as he was nicknamed, evaded arrest attempts and defiantly appeared at the funerals of his fellow fighters.
After nearly six months, the Israeli forces tracked Ibrahim and two other fighters to an apartment in central Nablus, killing all three in a dramatic gun battle.
In his statement, then-prime minister of Israel Yair Lapid called Ibrahim a terrorist whose killing was ‘another step in our uncompromising fight against terrorism.’
Over 10,000 Palestinians attended Ibrahim’s funeral. The images of his mother, walking in the crowd and brandishing his rifle, spread across social media.
“When Ibrahim was martyred, I said Ibrahim didn’t die. If Ibrahim is gone, another 100,000 Ibrahims will appear,” she said.
Alaa al-Nabulsi in his home in Nablus that he and his wife turned into a museum of his son Ibrahim. Credit: SBS Dateline
The rise of the Lions’ Den
In the wake of Ibrahim’s death, a group of young men in Nablus announced the formation of the Lions’ Den.
They began a spree of ad hoc attacks targeting Israeli soldiers, military checkpoints, and Israeli settlers. In a matter of weeks, Lion’s Den members were involved in 34 shootings and killed one Israeli soldier.
In response to surging violence, the Israel Defence Forces ramped up what they called counter-terrorism operations in Nablus and the Jenin refugee camp, about an hour’s drive north of Nablus. And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government has accelerated the expansion of Israeli settlements .. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/australia-joins-uk-and-canada-in-calling-for-a-stop-to-new-settlements-in-the-west-bank/zuu19cjra ..
in the West Bank in a move that was condemned by the United Nations and foreign governments.
[Palestinian gunman opens fire on bus in Jerusalem, wounding 8
August, 2022 - https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=169677089]
A Palestinian youth holds a rock as he faces an Israeli military vehicle during an Israeli forces raid in Nablus in February. Source: AFP / Zain Jaafar /via Getty Images
The past two years have been the deadliest for Palestinians in the West Bank in more than a decade. According to United Nations data .. https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties , 342 Palestinians, including 75 children, were killed there since the start of 2022, mostly in Jenin and Nablus. Some 30 Israeli soldiers were killed in clashes with Palestinian militia and protesters in the West Bank.
READ MORE Israeli troops start withdrawing from Jenin after large military operation
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/israeli-troops-start-withdrawing-after-biggest-military-operation-in-years/hexunf2kt
On the day Hamas launched its unprecedented attack on Israel from Gaza with rocket strikes and killings of civilians, the group’s military commander Mohammed Deif cited the violence in the West Bank as one of the reasons.
“Hundreds (of our people) have been martyred and injured this year due to the occupation’s crimes,” his statement from 7 October read. “Our calls for a humanitarian (prisoners) exchange were met with refusal, and daily violations continue in the West Bank.”
Hamas is a Palestinian military and political group that has gained power in the Gaza Strip since winning legislative elections there in 2006. Its stated aim is to establish a Palestinian state while refusing to recognise Israel’s right to exist.
Hamas, in its entirety, is designated as a terrorist organisation by countries including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Some countries list only its military wing as a terrorist group.
More than 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, were killed and 3,400 were injured by Hamas militants in the October attack, the deadliest in Israel’s history. Israel said it will continue its retaliatory bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip .. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/no-humanitarian-exceptions-to-gaza-siege-until-all-hamas-hostages-are-freed-israel-says/mb81gmqi7 .. until all its hostages are freed .. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/no-humanitarian-exceptions-to-gaza-siege-until-all-hamas-hostages-are-freed-israel-says/mb81gmqi7 . The Gaza health ministry says at least 2,750 Palestinians have been killed and 9,700 wounded by Israeli airstrikes.
In what many see as a preparation for a ground offensive, Israel’s military told 1.1. million Palestinians – half of Gaza’s population - to move south. The only passage into Egypt remains closed.
Amid the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza, the Lions’ Den has called its supporters to march in solidarity with Gaza and engaged in small-arms clashes with Israeli security forces, according to a US-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War.
Huda al-Nabulsi waving a rifle at the funeral of her son, Ibrahim, and two other young Palestinians killed during the raid by Israeli forces in Nablus. Source: Anadolu / Getty Images
There’s also been an increase in attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank by Israeli soldiers and settlers. At least 51 have reportedly been killed since 7 October.
READ MORE Australia will again use the term 'Occupied Palestinian Territories'. Here's why
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/australia-will-again-use-the-term-occupied-palestinian-territories-whats-the-significance/d43jq2xne
Terrorists or heroes?
To his parents and some Palestinians, Ibrahim is a hero and a martyr, a role model and a symbol of resistance. And so are the Lions’ Den fighters.
But for Israelis, they are considered as terrorists without a clear ideology and youngsters seeking online fame.
“Yes, they are launching attacks. They are killing Israelis. But what's the end goal?” said Alon Ben-David, an Israeli defence correspondent and military analyst. “I don't think there is any. They just want to be what every child wants to be today: a web influencer.”
“There is no desire [by Israeli forces] to kill anyone. But when there is resistance from the terrorists, eventually, it ends with their death,” he said.
Israeli military analyst Alon Ben-David says the Lions' Den have no ideology and are engaged in "social media motivated terrorism" Credit: SBS Dateline
Israeli officials have labelled the group ‘a terror squad’.
Nablus mayor Sami Ahmed Hijjawi, who is aligned with the ruling Palestinian Authority, blames the instability on Israel and its encroachment on the Palestinian territories. But he disapproves of the Lions’ Den’s methods.
“We do not have the force and the power to fight Israel militarily,” he said. “Resistance against Israel should be organised, should have a political view, should have a political background, not only shooting and killing and fighting.”
‘A place with no religion or politics’
Today, the presence of the Lions’ Den is everywhere in Nablus.
Lions' Den merchandise is sold in the markets. Billboards, posters and murals carry the faces of the slain fighters, who are venerated as heroes and martyrs. Of all, Ibrahim is the most prominent.
His grave has become a site of pilgrimage for boys, not much younger than he was at the time of his death, dreaming of becoming resistance fighters like him one day.
Across Nablus, the Lions' Den fighters are revered as heroes and martyrs, and young boys dream of becoming resistance fighters like them. Credit: SBS Dateline
‘If you went to the street tonight, you will find children having plastic guns and [saying] ‘Oh, I’m Wadi (Wadi al-Houh was killed in October 2022), I’m Ibrahim.’ The Lions’ Den leaders,” said Nablus resident Basel Kittaneh. “They are pretending themselves like them. This is childhood here.”
Kittaneh used to be a militant.
A former member of the military wing of Hamas, he fought in the Second Intifada and spent 15 years in jail for his involvement.
"I came back from the prison. It's the day that I was born again. It's the day that I came back from the grave," he said.
He returned to Nablus with a dream of doing good for his community without violence. He and his brother run a youth hostel and a bar in the old city. It’s a place that offers young people a peaceful and tolerant venue that runs events and helps organise tours in the old city. Anyone is welcome as long as they don’t talk about politics and religion.
“If you want to be a hero, you have to resist, you have to fight. It’s not right that we’re raising our sons for that.”
Dateline is an Australian award-winning international documentary series. Each week Dateline scours the globe to bring you a world of daring stories. Read more about Dateline
Have a story or comment? Contact Us .. https://help.sbs.com.au/hc/en-au/requests/new
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/dateline/article/how-the-death-of-a-teen-palestinian-fighter-inspired-a-gen-z-militia-in-the-west-bank/versb7f5k
See again: While whites of the world in general apologize Israel's generations of oppressive violence and cruelty while condemning (as it should) Hamas's
abject brutality let our thoughts drift to colonial Africa and particularly oppressive regimes which have died there. And to early America.
"WHY? It's rock bottom -- Why did Hamas attack, and why now? What does it hope to gain?"
[...]
[Insert October 17, 2023: Supporting Palestinian rights is antisemitic because Israel wants it to be
[...] Antisemitism predates the state of Israel by about two millennia, and ending the occupation won’t make it disappear. But if describing the oppressive actions of the Jewish state is “feeding antisemitism,” then demanding the end of these acts could reduce the heat.
P - That should also give comfort to diaspora Jews, who might have family in Israel.
P - Far from offensive, criticizing the Israeli government should be viewed as an act of love that could help make everyone more safe and more free. The freedom and safety of Jewish Israelis and the freedom and safety of Christian and Muslim Palestinians are not mutually exclusive — in fact, they are secured through co-existence.
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[...]
Nowhere is that blindness more apparent then in the constant, puerile need to critique Mandela's turn toward violence. The impulse is old. "Why Won't Mandela Renounce Violence? .. http://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/21/opinion/why-won-t-mandela-renounce-violence.html " asked a New York Times column in 1990. Is that what we said to Savimbi? To Mobutu?
Malcolm X understood:
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If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.
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Martin Luther King Jr. agreed .. http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0115-13.htm :
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As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems ... But, they asked, what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, my own government.
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As did Mandela. Offered the chance to be free by the avowed white supremacist P.W. Botha if he would renounce violence, Mandela replied .. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/09/nelson-mandela-demanded-justice-before-forgiving-white-south-africans.html , “Let him renounce violence.”
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It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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