Hamas, Palestinian Authority Go To War Against Each Other In Samaria

The Palestinian Authority (PA), which for years has had a “pay for slay” reward program for Palestinian terrorists who murder Israelis, and the terrorist group Hamas, which committed the brutal October 7 massacre, are going to war in Samaria.

Iran has been trying to foster war against Israel in Judea and Samaria by smuggling sophisticated weapons to Palestinians there, but with Israel’s decimation of Hezbollah and Hamas and the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, Iran has been stymied.

With Hamas losing control of Gaza, the Biden administration has indicated that it would prefer the PA— which was ousted in 2007 in Gaza in a bloody war with Hamas— to take control of Gaza. Thus, the PA has been trying to assert control in the terrorist hotspot Jenin in Samaria, as Hamas has tried to expand its influence there.

“For the last eight days, PA security forces have battled Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters in Jenin, determined to regain control over the refugee camp that had fallen under the sway of terrorists unaffiliated with the PA,” the Jerusalem Post reported. “These terrorists, aligned with Iran’s ‘axis of evil,’ were a cornerstone of the Islamic Republic’s strategy to ignite an explosion in Judea and Samaria.”

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A PA senior security official said Monday, “Since Hamas lacks the political courage to apologize to the Palestinian people, especially the residents of Gaza, and since it cannot reform its policy, which is leading to disaster and undermining the steadfastness of the people, it is now dragging the West Bank into flames, gambling with what remains of the Palestinian people’s resources under the pretext of struggle and resistance.”

As the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs noted in 2016:

Since 2003, it has been Palestinian law to reward Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails with a monthly paycheck–legislation which creates jihad. Under this act, the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian Liberation Organization use a so-called “martyrs’ fund” to pay the families of Palestinian prisoners and suicide bombers. One prominent Palestinian says that these inducements have become “sacred in Palestinian politics.”

Last February, Yasser Abu Sido, a senior official of the Palestinian Authority’s ruling party, Fatah, said, “I am not a fan of Hitler, but when Hitler perpetrated the Holocaust, he had obvious reasons. … They planned to take control of Germany. They started to bring down Germany in terms of the economy and moral values. Hitler reacted by making the Jews go on the streets and lick the sidewalks. They know this very well.”