PA raids on Jenin are a 'betrayal', says senior Hamas official
The Palestinian Authority’s (PA) raids on Jenin are a “betrayal” and could lead to the end of the PA’s governance in the occupied West Bank, a senior Hamas official told Middle East Eye.
In a wide-ranging interview, Basem Naim, a key leader in Hamas’ political bureau, discussed the ceasefire agreement with Israel, the future of Hamas, escalating violence in the West Bank, Israeli ties with Saudi Arabia and the new Syrian government, among other topics.
The conversation took place days after the Gaza ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel came into effect.
Shortly after the ceasefire began, Israel launched a brutal offensive on Jenin and its refugee camp, killing at least 12 and wounding at least 50 others. It has also severely damaged infrastructure and displaced hundreds of residents.
The Israeli raid followed a weeks-long PA operation in Jenin, during which Palestinian security forces besieged the area in an attempt to crack down on resistance groups.
“Most of the Palestinians consider the so-called security operation of the PA in the West Bank, especially in the refugee camp of Jenin, as a betrayal and as a clear submission to the occupation,” said Naim.
He said the PA had “converted themselves” into “part of the security plans of the Israelis”.
“How can we understand that the Palestinian security forces are besieging the refugee camp and, at the same time, it is attacked from the air by Israeli aircraft?” he asked.
Naim, a former health minister in Gaza, said that the PA’s operation undermined Palestinian unity and weakened efforts to stand up against Israeli aggression.
He said that PA officials were “selling themselves illusions” if they thought that by attacking and “besieging their own people”, they would be granted any promises from Israel or the United States.
“At the end of this year, we might see the PA leaving or disappearing,” he added, noting that members of Israel’s cabinet had suggested this could happen.
With a ceasefire now in place in Gaza, Naim said the next armed escalation with Israel could occur in the West Bank or Jerusalem.
He noted that the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attack, in which more than 1,100 Israelis were killed and 250 taken captive, was code-named “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood”.
“Which means it is about Al-Aqsa, it is about Jerusalem, it is about the West Bank,” he said, adding that Israel was treating the territories as “de facto annexed areas”.
The Hamas official said that it was only a “matter of time” before the next round of escalation.
“If the Palestinians cannot reach their goal of an independent state - including the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Jerusalem - I think no one can enjoy security or stability or prosperity in the region,” he said.
“We might witness the Third or Fourth Intifada. Popular resistance is everywhere in each street. I am sure it will be very, very complicated - more complicated than the scene in the Gaza Strip.”
Hamas is proscribed as a terrorist group in the UK, US and several other countries. The group describes itself as a "Palestinian Islamic national liberation and resistance movement".
Last year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced it had sought arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders over charges of killing hundreds of Israeli civilians and the taking of captives on 7 October.
The ICC prosecutor said the leaders bore criminal responsibility for crimes against humanity, including murder and extermination, as well as war crimes such as hostage-taking and cruel treatment of captives, and other serious offences.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, were also handed ICC arrest warrants for "the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts".
Naim said the 15-month war on Gaza, which killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, was a “victory” for the Palestinian people and a defeat for Israel.
He said Israel had a number of stated goals: crushing Hamas militarily and politically in Gaza, ejecting Palestinians from the enclave and retrieving the Israeli captives by force. Israel failed in all of these goals, Naim said.
“The resistance is still there… in their uniforms, with their new cars. The resistance was able up to the last moment, one day before, to attack the Israeli forces on the ground and to cause a lot of harm.”
He said it was a “historic moment” when one of the region’s strongest armies was unable to defeat “a group of fighters in a small, tiny area of 360 sqkm, besieged for more than 17 years”.
Naim added that Israel itself acknowledged it had failed to protect its own people and failed to achieve its declared goals, citing the recent resignation of Herzi Halevi, the military’s chief of staff.
He described the 7 October attack as “an act of defence” after “the failure of the political track for 30 years” since the Oslo Accords.
“We have tried to send a very strong message on 7 October and thereafter that we cannot be good victims,” he said.
“We cannot be silent victims. We are ready to sacrifice anything to get rid of this open-air prison, to get rid of this occupation.”
He likened Palestinian resistance with those fighting against colonial powers during the Vietnam War and the Algerian War.
“The mentality and the nature of colonial powers is that they are savage, they are brutal and they are not ready to give up unless you are using the same tools they are using,” Naim said. “We have resorted to armed resistance only when all other tools and means have failed.”
'Israel today - after 7 October and after all these 15 months - is not Israel as before'
- Basem Naim, Hamas official
He said that Palestinian resistance had not only achieved a militaristic victory but also a strategic one.
He said that Israel had become a “burden for its allies” through its “rogue behaviour” and that ordinary people, particularly in the West, had now seen the reality “through their own eyes”.
In addition, he said that Israel was, for the first time, being held to account for genocide and war crimes by international bodies, citing the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the ICC and the UN General Assembly (UNGA).
“Israel today - after 7 October and after all these 15 months - is not Israel as before,” he said.
Naim noted that an estimated 70 percent of Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza were women and children - a disproportionate figure that he suggested is unprecedented in human history.
“There was an intention to commit these crimes - this genocide, this starvation - in order to achieve their goals.”
Naim, who lived in Gaza his entire life, left the territory days before 7 October for a meeting in Turkey. The war had a personal toll on him, with several of his immediate and extended family killed by Israeli attacks.
“I am talking about my mother, my grandchildren and some of my nieces.”
On the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s rule in Syria, Naim said he welcomed freedom for the Syrian people.
Assad's government was part of the Axis of Resistance, an Iranian-dominated alliance of anti-Israel states and groups across the region.
Relations between Assad and Hamas became strained after the Palestinian movement refused to support his government against Syria’s armed opposition. However, the two sides reconciled shortly before the Gaza war began.
“We have expressed publicly our happiness to see Syrian people getting their freedom, finally after paying a very high price,” he said. “It was a very big price to get rid of a dictatorship.”
Naim stressed that Hamas is not interested in engaging in domestic or regional conflicts or disputes unrelated to the Palestinian cause, dismissing any affiliation with regional “axes”.
“Our compass is directed to Al-Aqsa, to Jerusalem. We are welcoming any kind of support,” he said.
He added that he hoped Syria would continue to support Palestinian rights “as it was for decades even before the Assad regimes”.
Elsewhere in the region, Naim said that if talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia to establish open ties recommence following the ceasefire in Gaza, they will ultimately “fail”.
“I am a surgeon professionally,” he said. “The first step of any successful process is to diagnose the disease.
“You can give the patient all kinds of medicine. It might relieve him for a while, but it doesn't solve the problem. We have a clear problem here: the Israeli occupation.”
Naim said that without resolving the “root question”, all other initiatives, such as normalisation, will “lead to nothing except postponing the next round of escalation”.
On the killing of Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, among other senior figures, Naim said that the group had received “a very strong strike” against its capabilities and leadership.
However, he added: “Hamas is not a small group of young people who carry Kalashnikovs.”
He said Hamas is a well-organised movement with administrative capabilities to cope with losses and changes.
Naim said that following the killing of Sinwar, Hamas had formed a cabinet of five leaders, led by Muhammad Ismail Darwish, the head of the group’s Shura Council. He would not disclose the identities of the other four members.
Naim said that Hamas is committed to the ceasefire deal and would do everything in its power to ensure its success.
He said Israel may violate the deal, as it has done recently in southern Lebanon, but that Israeli society was “exhausted”.
“The political structure is exhausted; the economy is exhausted; the army is exhausted. Therefore, I don't think that they have the capability to go for an open war again against Gaza,” he said.
He added that US President Donald Trump said he did not want to see wars again, leaving Israel without “excuses” or “conditions” to resume the conflict.
Naim speculated that Israel might instead focus on assassinations or localised attacks, to which Hamas would assess and plan its response.
When asked whether prominent Palestinian political leaders would be included among the prisoners released as part of the ceasefire deal, he ruled out their inclusion in the first phase.
'We are not eager to be part of any government and we are ready to hand it over'
- Basem Naim, Hamas official
“Unfortunately, in the first phase, they have said that these big names are not part of the deal,” he said. “I'm talking about Marwan Barghouti, Ahmad Saadat and some very famous leaders in Hamas.
“We are expecting to negotiate it again in the second phase.”
He reiterated, as other Hamas officials have in recent months, that the group is willing to step aside from governance if Palestinians are able to choose an alternative path.
“We are not eager to be part of any government and we are ready to hand it over to any Palestinian body supported by all Palestinian factions,” Naim said.
However, he affirmed that this decision must be made solely by Palestinians and not “any foreign force”, be they “Arab forces, Islamic forces [or] international forces”.
“We are not deciding for Jordan, or for the UK, or for any country what to do,” he said. “Palestinians are clever enough, smart enough, mature enough to decide for themselves.”