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Jenin camp braces for defending Gilboa Prison fugitive
“If Zakaria returns to his home in the camp, everyone here will protect him,” his uncle, Jamal, said as three masked gunmen belonging to the camp’s “monitor unit” set up a makeshift checkpoint at the entrance to the Jenin Refugee Camp.
“The camp is the safest place for Zakaria to be in,” he added. “Look how many people are on the streets to stop the Israeli army from entering the camp.”
As the uncle was speaking, the gunmen from the “monitor unit” spotted a suspicious black vehicle approaching them. One of the gunmen fired warning shots into the air, forcing the driver to make a quick U-Turn and flee the area.
Zubeidi’s brother, Yahya, and the uncle, Jamal, praised the jailbreak as a “heroic act.” They and several activists in the camp said that the escape was also a severe blow to the Israeli security establishment.
But Yahya pointed out that he does not believe that his brother was the mastermind of the escape. “He always loved adventures, but I don’t believe that he planned the escape from prison,” he added.
According to the brother, Zubeidi spent the past few years in Ramallah, where he was employed as a senior official with the Palestinian Authority Ministry for Prisoners Affairs. Zubeidi, a former commander of Fatah’s armed wing, Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the Jenin camp, was arrested by the IDF in 2019 for his role in a series of terrorist attacks.
“The situation in the camp is very bad,” said Yahya Zubeidi. “I believe that the resistance [against Israel] will continue.”
Shami al-Shami, a former Fatah-affiliated member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said that the residents of the Jenin Refugee Camp and the armed groups are demanding an end to the Israeli security forces’ “incursions” into the camp.
“The people in the camp are very frustrated and angry,” al-Shami said. “The economic situation is very bad and many people are unemployed. They are demanding solutions. They also want Israel to hand over the bodies of Palestinians who were recently killed in Jenin by the Israeli army. Until then, you will continue to see armed men on the streets of the camp.”
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American money ear-marked for PA security used to pay families of terrorists from Jenin – report
The Palestinian Authority’s General Security Service (GIS) has apparently admitted to using American money earmarked for security to pay the family of terrorists from Jenin, according to a Palestinian Media Watch report.
According to the report, on April 4, 2024, PA news agency WAFA published that the GIS in Jenin had given a grant to “the families of the Martyrs and the prisoners from the service’s ranks in the district.”
The GIS gave grants to around 36 families from among the “martyrs and prisoners.”
The vast majority of those identified as “martyrs” or “prisoners” were members of the GIS who had committed acts of terror, according to the PMW.The grant was given at the direction of PA General Intelligence Chief Majed Faraj, who emphasized a core principle of Mahmoud Abbas: “If we are left with one penny, it will be paid to the families of the Martyrs and the prisoners.”
Taylor Force Act
The US had all but ceased providing funds for the PA after the implementation of the 2017 Taylor Force Act, which blocked all funding for the PA general budget.
The act was named for Taylor Force, an American citizen killed in a terror attack in 2016, where the attacker’s family received money from the PA’s pay-for-slay program.
The exception to this was the funding of the PA’s security sector, which received around $45 million in 2022, according to the State Department’s website.
The PMW says that this money was then used to not only provide funds for terrorists and their families but also to train PA security forces, many of whom end up involved in terrorism, according to PA statements in 2023.
The PMW charge that US funds are now being used to directly fund and train terrorists in the West Bank.
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Blinken tells Jewish leaders in the US does not want Israel to ‘escalate’ after Iran attack
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Biden administration does not want tensions between Iran and Israel to “escalate” after Iran’s massive attack on Israel over the weekend, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told American Jewish leaders.
Blinken called the meeting at the State Department on Tuesday morning as Israel contemplates how and when to retaliate against Iran. Blinken underscored how eager the Biden Administration is for the Israel-Hamas war not to spread across the region.
“We understand and appreciate why the Israelis feel like they must respond,” Blinken said according to the notes of one participant, confirmed by three others. “In our estimation, it is not in Israel’s interests or in America’s interest for this to escalate. However, that is a decision for Israel to make. We would never tell Israel what to do — we just give the best advice we can.”
That message came after reports that President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States would not participate in or support an Israeli attack on Iran. The United States did help defend Israel from the Iranian attack, shooting down missiles and drones fired by Iran. It was part of a coalition of countries that came to Israel’s defense, including the United Kingdom, France and Jordan.Tuesday’s meeting was off the record, but a number of participants agreed to describe it on condition they not be identified. Groups represented included the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, J Street, the Reform movement, the Jewish Democratic Council of America, the National Council of Jewish Women, the Jewish Federations of North America, the Israel Policy Forum, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the American Jewish Committee, the Conservative movement, Hadassah and the Anti-Defamation League.
Deborah Lipstadt, the State Department’s envoy to combat antisemitism, moderated the gathering. The State Department did not return a request for comment.
Unconditional support for the Jewish state
There was some pushback from the centrist and right-wing Jewish officials present, who called on the United States to support whatever decision Israel makes. “If and when and how Israel responds, we said it’s very important for that to be backed up by the United States, so that Iran and others see that the coalition [that repelled Iran’s attack] will stay together and remain a deterrent to Iran,” one of the participants said.
Overall, the Jewish leaders evinced gratitude, with the word “miracle” used multiple times to describe the relief that Israel and its allies downed most of the missiles and that no one was killed by the attack. There was relief, too, the US-Israel tensions over the Gaza war, intensifying in recent weeks, appeared to dissipate for the time being. “The alllyship solidified this weekend,” a participant said.
The centrist and center-right officials also decried the tensions between Israel and the United States prior to the Iran attack over Israel’s prosecution of the war against Hamas. They said that divisions between Israel and the United States should remain private, and that creating public “daylight” between the countries encourages their enemies and spurs antisemitism.
Blinken said he too preferred to keep disagreements private, and noted that most leaks regarding US-Israel disagreements come from the Israeli side. No one in the room argued with that.
Others in the room, representing the more liberal groups, were sympathetic to the Biden administration’s pressing Israel to facilitate the entry of more aid into the Gaza Strip, which is experiencing a humanitarian crisis.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, the liberal Jewish Middle East lobby, praised the Biden Administration for sanctioning Jewish extremists the Biden Administration says are terrorizing West Bank Palestinians.
The atmosphere was warm despite the pushback on Israel’s potential retaliation against Iran, all participants said; the hour-long meeting opened and closed with the Jewish groups lavishing praise on the Biden Administration for rapidly coming to Israel’s assistance to repel the attacks.
“While there might be specific policy disagreements, everyone there was also coming from the same fundamental place, having the same fundamental values and the same fundamental concern for the safety of the Jewish people and the safety of the Israeli people,” Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the JCPA, a liberal-leaning public policy group, said in an interview.
Spitalnick thanked Blinken for the work the Biden Administration was undertaking to identify foreign-sourced misinformation in an election year, noting how the toxicity in the misinformation often morphs into bigotry and antisemitism, which spreads.
“We see how post-Oct. 7, antisemites of all stripes are being empowered and emboldened and amplified by a number of these foreign bot farms and disinformation campaigns,” she said. “And it’s having very real impacts on Jewish safety.”
Jewish diaspora organizations expressed concern for Israel and increased their own security preparedness as Iran launched drones against Israel on Saturday night.
The Jewish Federation said it was comforted by IDF statements that the situation was under control and by the statements of support by the United States of America, but was watching “Iran’s launch of an attack on Israel with extreme concern.”
“We are monitoring the situation very closely and join in prayer for our brothers and sisters in Israel.”
Preparing for attacks in the diaspora
The Conference of European Rabbis said that Jewish communities in Europe were raising their level of preparedness, given the history of Iranian proxies attacking Jewish targets on the continent.
“We are closely monitoring the Iranian attack on Israel and its implications for the security of Jews in the diaspora,” said conference president Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt. ‘We are in contact with all the leaders of the Jewish communities and security officials across the continent. I call on all Jews across Europe to remain vigilant in community institutions and to act responsibly in the public sphere.”
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