Emanuel Fabian
Times of Israel, Oct. 20, 2022
“The offensive has netted more than 2,000 arrests during near-nightly raids in Palestinian cities, towns and villages. It has also left around 100 Palestinians dead, many of them while carrying out attacks or during clashes with security forces.”
Israel over the past week has imposed harsh sanctions on the northern West Bank city of Nablus in an attempt to curb a wave of shootings by an armed faction of young Palestinian men. While this strategy has proved somewhat effective, the gunmen have vowed to continue their brazen attacks.
The armed faction, which calls itself “Lion’s Den,” has claimed responsibility for the majority of shooting attacks in the Nablus area since it was formed in August by members of various terror groups, including people previously affiliated with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, among others.
One Israeli soldier was killed in an attack by the group and a second person was lightly injured in a separate assault on civilian vehicles. The other attacks have been ineffectual, but videos of the shootings uploaded to social media have helped it win it massive popularity on the Palestinian street in a short time.
The group, based in Nablus’s Old City, is believed to consist of several dozen members, mostly young, secular men, who eschew any proper hierarchy, unlike other armed factions in the West Bank. Israeli officials have labeled them as a “terror squad.”
While most other unorganized popular resistance involves attacking troops conducting operations inside Palestinian cities, Lion’s Den members do not wait for troops to come to them, instead heading outside of the Nablus Old City on an almost nightly basis and attacking Israeli targets in the area, before managing to flee back unscathed, almost every time. … SOURCE
