The Jenin refugee camp is the scene of yet another battle. But this time, it's between Palestinians. The operation, dubbed "Protect the Homeland," began on December 4 in this West Bank city. It involves the security forces of the Palestinian Authority (PA), in particular the 2,000-strong elite 101st unit, trained by American and Canadian troops. This deployment, which is still underway, aims to dismantle cells of fighters from radical Palestinian movements such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as the armed wing of Fatah. Seven civilians were killed in the operation, along with six members of the Palestinian security forces and one armed militant, according to OCHA, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. "This is a huge gamble. It's the biggest operation in the history of the Palestinian security forces. It's now or never to prove what they're capable of," said a Western diplomat in Jerusalem.

This is the gamble of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who, at 89 years of age, is hoping to curry favor with the next American president, Donald Trump, whose entourage includes several promoters of Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, including notably the next ambassador to Jerusalem, Mike Huckabee. The latter had declared in 2008: "There's really no such thing as a Palestinian." According to Hani al-Masri, director of the Palestinian think tank Masarat in Ramallah, Abbas may even be ready to accept the "deal of the century," which he had roundly rejected in 2020. This peace plan, presented by Trump, truncated the West Bank into several parts, while Jerusalem was left under almost complete Israeli control.

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