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By Miriam Berger, William Booth and Fatima AbdulKarim
with Sammy Westfall

A new generation of Palestinian fighters is rising up in the West Bank

Palestinians inspect a militant hideout destroyed during a Feb. 22 raid by Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Nablus. (Majdi Mohammed/AP)

NABLUS, West Bank — A Palestinian militant named Mohammad Abu Dhraa strode boldly through this city's roughest refugee camp last week with an assault rifle on his shoulder, an entourage of young men following in his path.

The day before, Abu Dhraa had taken part in an hours-long gun battle with Israeli soldiers who raided Nablus's city center, one of the deadliest confrontations here in years.

Fighters like Abu Dhraa are not tied to a party or a political ideology. But they have easy access to guns and are committed to the fight. In their youth and independence, they represent a new kind of threat — not only to Israel but to an ever-weaker Palestinian Authority, run by unelected men in their 70s and 80s.

In earlier generations, Palestinian political factions ran the brigades during street fighting against Israel. Now, cells of teenagers and young men in their early 20s from the neighborhood are calling the shots.

"The names aren't important," said Abu Dhraa, speaking of the various brigades who fought with him during the Feb. 22 raid in Nablus. "We are resisting the Israeli occupation. It's not important a person's faction. What's important is they are a soldier on the ground."

Over the past year, the Israeli military has carried out increasingly lethal near-daily raids across the occupied West Bank, targeting Palestinian militants it says are responsible for, or planning, attacks against Israelis. Under the most far-right government in Israel's history, sworn in late last year, the raids have escalated, taking a heavy toll on civilians. The cycle of gun battles and funerals in Nablus, Jenin and elsewhere have inspired revenge attacks, and appear to be fueling the growing militancy rather than containing it.

Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed more than 60 Palestinians so far in 2023, the highest rate in years; Palestinian attacks have killed at least 14 Israelis, seven of them in a shooting outside a synagogue in East Jerusalem in January.

It has been nearly 20 years since the last Palestinian intifada, or uprising. And while the dynamics have changed, observers say, the fundamentals are the same — occupation, despair and relentless violence.

Across the West Bank, "the widespread public frustration and desperation is there" for another Palestinian uprising, said Tahani Mustafa, an expert with the International Crisis Group. "I think it's going to be a lot bloodier, far more diffused, far more fragmented."

In the decaying alleys of Nablus and nearby refugee camps, mourners gathered last week to praise those killed in the raid — six militants, most in their 20s, and at least four civilians, including a 16-year-old boy.

"We have chosen our path," Abu Dhraa said. "There is no going back."

The armed groups popping up are decentralized — but when the army raided Nablus, fighters from Jenin came to their aid, Abu Dhraa said. As the dust settled that night, a new brigade in Tulkarem, farther north, announced its formation on Telegram and TikTok.

The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that it "operates in a complex operational reality" in the West Bank "and faces violent riots and acts of terrorism daily," including "explosive devices, molotov cocktails and stones." The military said it uses "riot dispersal means, and when necessary — live fire."

All the while, a succession crisis is brewing over who will replace the ailing Palestinian Authority president, 87-year-old Mahmoud Abbas, whose role in a failing U.S.-led peace process has left him with limited rule over the West Bank.

"What unifies these splinter groups," Mustafa explained, "is their frustration with the occupation and a divided Palestinian leadership."

Gunmen wearing the insignia of the Lions' Den militant group attend the funeral of one of its fighters on Oct. 23 in Nablus. (Majdi Mohammed/AP)

The new generation

Over the past year in Nablus and Jenin — traditional hot spots of militancy — new groups such as the Lions' Den and the Balata Brigade have amassed followers in the streets and on social media. They fight the military during raids and fire at soldiers at checkpoints, but also attack Israelis in Jewish settlements and inside Israel.

And they are inspiring others. In January, five friends from the Aqbat Jabr refugee camp formed an armed cell in Jericho, a normally sleepy town considered a stronghold of the Palestinian Authority and its dominant Fatah party.

The young men, four of them cousins and all in their 20s, were wanted by Israel in connection with a failed shooting attack at a restaurant in a nearby settlement.

The five friends had spoken often about "martyrdom and resistance" against the occupation, said Saadiya Awadat, 70, the grandmother of brothers Refat, 21, and Ibrahim Awadat, 27, and their cousins Adham, 22, and Thaer Awadat, 28.

Ibrahim had started building a second floor to his father's cramped home, which he needed to get married. But the cousins and a school friend, Malik Lafi, 22, were simultaneously stockpiling assault weapons, according to the Israeli military. The weapons won out.

During a 10-day manhunt for the fighters, Israel put Jericho in a state of lockdown, setting up checkpoints that brought business and traffic to a standstill.

On the eighth day, Feb. 4, the military launched the largest raid on the camp in decades, shooting up the Awadats' homes and firing shoulder-launched missiles at the house of a relative. In the darkness of night, residents said, soldiers ordered men to strip down in the rain and arrested dozens from the extended family.

The fighters escaped. The incursion, like so many before it, left locals feeling angry and helpless.

Hours after the raid, a sleepless Jamal Omar, chair of the administration committee for the Aqbat Jabr refugee camp, was at his wits' end. He had tried to calm tensions. But like all parents, he worried that his son "could be out in the street and be shot and killed."

Aqbat Jabr is one of 19 refugee camps in the West Bank, built for Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes in 1948. Israel captured the Palestinian territories in 1967. The 1993 Oslo peace accords created the Palestinian Authority as a step toward statehood, but polls show that most here have given up on a two-state solution to the conflict.

Israeli settlements and agricultural outposts, illegal under international law, now dominate much of the West Bank. Palestinians in the territory are subject to military rule and have no political recourse: The Palestinian Authority has not held elections in 17 years, while Hamas, the extremist militant group, controls the Gaza Strip.

Two days after their first raid targeting the Awadats and Lafi, Israeli forces raided Jericho again before dawn on Feb. 6. They killed all five fighters, hiding in a shack, and took their bodies. Hours later, green Hamas flags flew over the houses where the Awadat family had gathered to mourn. A Fatah flag flew at Lafi's home.

"Without a political solution, no place will remain quiet," Omar said.

Adel Awadat, 61, walks through his house in the Aqbat Jabr refugee camp in Jericho on Feb. 5, a day after it was hit by Israeli shoulder-fired missiles during a manhunt for members of his extended family. (Tanya Habjouqa/NOOR for The Washington Post)

A political void

The IDF labeled the Jericho group a "Hamas terrorist squad," referring to the Iran-backed militant group in Gaza that has called for Israel's destruction, but declined to disclose its evidence.

On the ground, the picture is one of shifting affiliations and alliances of convenience, members of Hamas, Fatah and Islamic Jihad told The Washington Post. Some fighters raise or pool money; others get guns or funds from the traditional armed groups. Exactly who is supporting whom — and why — is difficult to determine.

Ultimately, "you can find groups of militants who come from different ideological backgrounds. Some are even not affiliated at all. They've just joined forces for the same mission," said Noa Shusterman, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, a think tank in Tel Aviv.

These new groups may participate in shootouts against Israeli forces entering their camps or seek "mostly military targets," such as checkpoints, "although we do see sometimes also civilian targets," she said.

The most well known of the new groups is the Lions' Den, which started in Nablus's Old City among disaffected young men, many from Fatah families, said Jamal Tirawi, a Fatah leader from the adjacent Balata refugee camp.

After Friday prayers, people offered donations to the fighters, he said. Over time, the extremist group Islamic Jihad, based out of Damascus, Syria, offered financial support, and Hamas followed, he added.

"The Lions' Den takes money from several factions," said Mahdi Sharqawi, a spokesperson for Islamic Jihad in Jenin. "But in the end, they don't belong to any political organization."

Over the past year, Israel has killed key members of the Lions' Den. But new cells keep forming. And when the Lions' Den calls on social media for strikes or protests, many Palestinians follow.

Sharqawi said Islamic Jihad's boycott of politics and focus on fighting Israel make it attractive to young Palestinians who have "lost faith in the political process."

"Islamic Jihad gives money to Fatah groups," Sharqawi said, because "if someone wants to resist on the ground, it's the same project as ours."

Fatah formally disbanded its armed wing, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, at the end of the second intifada, in the mid-2000s. Recently, however, some former fighters have taken up arms independent of the party leadership, said Abu Mujahid, 39, the spokesman for the Brigades in the Jenin refugee camp. He spoke to The Post on the condition that he be identified by his nom de guerre because he is wanted by Israel.

Abu Mujahid said he still supports Fatah's stance of diplomatic negotiations and two states. But in March 2020, he and others in Jenin "rebelled" against the party's leadership "to protect" the movement, he said.

"When you see crimes daily and there's no protection … we started to rise up again," he said.

He accused Hamas of trying to "exploit" frustrated young men, secretly arming cells to stir up violence and intensify Fatah infighting.

As he spoke in a salon of a family home, his 5-year-old son competed for his attention. Abu Mujahid said he had not been home for two months, fearing an Israeli raid.

The father showed his son his new U.S.-made M16 assault rifle, smuggled in from Jordan. He said he paid $20,000 for it.

Coordination between Israel and the Palestinian Authority's security forces is one of the pillars of the Oslo accords still in place, and is loathed by most Palestinians.

Palestinian Authority security officials phoned Maha Awadat, 47, the mother of Jericho brothers Ibrahim and Refat, while her sons were on the run, she said. Such calls are one of the only de-escalation tactics the officials have left: They offer a job or money to fugitives who surrender.

Most don't take the deal. The Awadat family ultimately dismissed the overture, the mother said.

Read on: A new generation of Palestinian fighters is rising up in the West Bank

1,000 Words

(Photos by Lorenzo Tugnoli for The Washington Post)

Post Kabul bureau chief Susannah George reports on the Afghan women, divorced and remarried, now considered outlaws under Taliban rule:

"After her stepfather sold her into marriage at the age of 13 to support his drug habit, the young Afghan woman fought for years to escape an abusive husband. She eventually fled his home, secured a divorce and remarried, she recalled.

Now, under Taliban rule, she's suddenly on the run again, at risk of imprisonment for adultery.

Under the previous government, this woman from western Afghanistan could get a divorce by testifying that her first husband was physically abusive, even though he refused to appear before the judge. But under the Taliban's draconian interpretation of Islamic law, her divorce is invalid and, as a result, so is her second marriage.

Former judges and lawyers estimate that thousands of Afghan women who earlier secured divorces without a husband's consent are now in danger under Taliban rule, facing potential imprisonment and violent reprisals."

Talking Points

• Ukrainian forces have clung to their positions in Bakhmut, fiercely resisting a Russian push to encircle the city in the eastern Donetsk region and prolonging a fight that has become a symbol of Ukraine's battlefield defiance.

• China pledged to expand its economy by "around 5 percent" this year, a modest goal that underlines the challenges confronting Chinese President Xi Jinping in his third term, reports The Post's Lily Kuo. "Struggle creates brilliance. Hard work wins the future," outgoing Premier Li Keqiang said in a wide-ranging speech that opened China's legislature, the National People's Congress in Beijing on Sunday.

• More than 190 countries have reached a landmark deal for protecting the biodiversity of the world's oceans, agreeing for the first time on a common framework for establishing new protected areas in international waters.

• In the late 1970s, Drug lord Pablo Escobar acquired four hippopotamuses for his estate in Colombia. The original four have since multiplied into more than 130 hippos. The aggressive, insatiable herbivores — not native to South America — are devouring plant life, crowding out native animals, polluting soil and water, and threatening people, reports Diana Durán.

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'Liberated school'

Children in a classroom at the Liberated School. (Tako Robakidze for The Washington Post)

YEREVAN, Armenia — After last year's invasion of Ukraine, academic freedom was among the first casualties. In wartime Russia, schoolchildren are now required to attend compulsory "patriotism" classes, teachers face jail time for expressing antiwar opinions in their classrooms and, in some kindergartens, there have even been weapons demonstrations.

But outside the country, in Russia's emigre communities — swelled by the hundreds of thousands who fled in response to the invasion or to avoid military conscription — newly established Russian schools are grappling with a different challenge: how to talk to children about the war, which has displaced their families but also spurred a wave of anti-Russian sentiment.

Vladislav Povyshev, a history teacher from Siberia, said he left Russia after it became clear he would not be able to teach in the way he wanted. "I understood that, especially with my subjects of history and social sciences, it would be difficult to get around these new, sharp corners in Russia," Povyshev, 32, said in an interview in the Armenian capital, where he now works at the Liberated School, set up to serve recently arrived young Russian immigrant families.

Povyshev said that his students — overwhelmed by the move and missing home — ask a lot of difficult questions that he cannot always answer. "They want to know why we ended up here, at this point, from a historical and political perspective," he said.

Povyshev has noticed that his students — all of whom grew up using the internet — often understand and see things more clearly than adults, "for better or worse."

"They are well aware of the consequences that await Russia after the war, and they are aware of the reasons for Russia's failures at the present stage," he said, adding that there have been instances of children breaking down in tears in class, or struggling with anxiety. They want to know the causes of the war and its historical origins but are also deeply concerned for the future.

"They want to know how it will end, what happens to both sides after a war," he said, "how future generations of Russians can improve the situation in Russia and relations with Ukraine and Ukrainians."

Like other teachers, Povyshev is navigating different ways to respond without overstepping his duty as an educator.

In his classes, he gives his pupils the space to express their opinions and encourages them to find counterarguments or parallels in history and international law. Debates in his classes have touched on many issues, including the history of Russian-Ukrainian relations, the collapse of empires and the notion of collective responsibility.

"The main thing is that we do not impose our own opinions and we do not suppress others' voices," Povyshev said. "It is always a conversation, always a dialogue. The students always have the opportunity to ask absolutely any question."

The Liberated School's ethos is markedly different from that of traditional schools in Russia where, even before the war, the curriculum was rigid and slanted, and rote learning the norm.

Pupils at the Liberated School are encouraged to think critically, debate and freely express their opinions. Creativity is celebrated. And teachers tend to prepare their own lesson materials, diverging from standard Russian textbooks.

"We definitely have a kinder atmosphere than in most schools in Russia," Elena Chegodaeva, the school's director, said. "We certainly will not have a portrait of Putin hanging on the wall. And we will not bend to anyone. We will not be told who are the good guys, who are the bad ones, who we should support and so on." – Francesca Ebel