West Bank Resistance will Unleash Attacks if Israel Goes Deeper into Gaza

West Bank militants rattle sabres over Gaza

Nasser Abu Aziz, a member of the militant Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, climbs the stairs to his home in the Balata refugee camp in the West Bank town of Nablus. Palestinian radicals are rattling their sabres in Nablus, one of the most volatile cities in the West Bank, threatening to unleash untold violence if Israel moves deeper into Gaza.(AFP/Jaafar Nashtiyeh)

July 5, 2006

by Selim Saheb Ettaba

NABLUS, West Bank (AFP) -Palestinian radicals are rattling their sabres in Nablus, one of the most volatile cities in the West Bank, threatening to unleash untold violence if Israel moves deeper into Gaza.

His muscular torso squeezed into a tight green T-shirt emblazoned with the name of US rap star Eminem, Nasser Abu Aziz, a member of the militant Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, flexes his biceps and brags about his strength.

"At the moment we are concentrating on the 1967 territories (the West Bank and Gaza Strip)," said Abu Aziz, 35, who lives in Nablus's Balata refugee camp, a black beret parked on his scalp.

He promotes himself as a resistance fighter involved in setting up Al-Aqsa, loosely affiliated to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah party, along with Nasser Qweis, the head of the faction in the occupied West Bank.

Qweis was captured after Israel reoccupied Nablus in 2002. Today much of the city, the scene of some of the heaviest fighting since the second Palestinian intifada erupted in 2000, has been rebuilt after devastating Israeli raids.

"But if Israel launches a large deadly operation against our brothers in Gaza, we will strike deep inside the territories of 1948," said Abu Aziz, referring to borders of Israel drawn after the first Arab-Israeli war.

A national conciliation document, signed only last week by the principal Palestinian factions, calls for an end to all attacks inside Israel proper.

"We are in contact with Gaza, we liaise by telephone," said Abu Aziz.

"For example," adds 24-year-old Mohammed Qattani, "They tell us: 'Do something to alleviate the military pressure.'"

But both militants remain evasive when pressed on the nature of possible attacks and how they would infiltrate Israeli army checkpoints that strangle Nablus, the largest city in the occupied West Bank.

Nevertheless they are adamant that their city -- where armed groups maintain a strong if somewhat curtailed presence thanks to Israeli military operations -- it is still a force to be reckoned with.

"It's the town with the most number of wanted men. They call it the nerve centre of terrorism," said Abu Aziz, whose own name and that of Qattani feature on Israel's wanted lists.

"It's inconceivable we would abandon our brothers in Gaza to fight alone," said a former Hamas leader in Nablus, Tayssir Imran.

"If there is a massive Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip, there will be a strong reaction in the entire West Bank and we will see the start of a third intifada," he said.

"Perhaps the different armed wings will launch operations to lessen the pressure," he suggested.

On Tuesday, after Israeli aircraft pounded Gaza for the seventh straight night in a bid to release an abducted soldier, an Al-Aqsa militant tried to bomb an Israeli convoy in the nearby West Bank town of Jenin and was killed.

The spiral of attacks continued overnight Tuesday with Israeli planes attacking the Palestinian interior ministry headquarters and a Hamas training camp in the Gaza Strip overnight.

The armed wing of the governing Hamas movement has threatened to resume attacks inside Israel after an 18-month truce, warning of a "sea of blood" should the military assault on Gaza not cease.

Installed in an ordinary apartment because his office was destroyed by the Israeli army, Nablus governor Said Abu Ali worries about the repercussions of a major deterioration on the already fragile Palestinian economy.

"The siege is two-fold: one surrounds the town blocking all entrances and a second the neighbouring villages. This is the only town in the West Bank completely shut off," said Abu Ali, complaining about rampant unemployment.

If there is no visible Israeli presence anywhere in Nablus, the army checkpoint of Hawarah on the city's southern approach is a constant reminder that occupation lives on in the West Bank.

Each Palestinian and each car is rigorously checked by helmeted and heavily armed soldiers. Drivers wait interminably to be waved through.

"There is a reaction in the West Bank to everything going on in Gaza. When there were internal problems in Gaza, with the rivalry between Hamas and Fatah, I tried to protect Nablus from that," Abu Ali said.

"But if there is a masive Israeli attack on Gaza, Nablus won't be able to keep well away," he sighed.