Nadeen Aishaer
J24, Oct. 11, 2022
“This generation is standing up, they are not scared of the Israeli invasion, and they want to try their luck with the struggle. They don’t remember the atrocities of the Second Intifada.”
Wearing all black, fully masked, and with weapons held high and tight to their right, the members of the Lions’ Den walked the streets and alleys of the old city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank for the first time as an organized cross-faction armed group on 2 September, with hundreds of people in attendance.
During the memorial ceremony they held for Lions’ Den fighters Muhammad “Abu Saleh” Al-Azizi and Abd Al-Rahman Subh, who were killed by Israeli forces during a military raid on Nablus on 24 July, the Lions’ Den (“Areen Al-Osood”) announced themselves as “a phenomenon of continuous resistance derived from its unity on the ground, and from the roots of the past revolution”.
Since the beginning of the year, the West Bank has been witnessing one of the most intense escalations of violence by Israeli forces and settlers which in turn has been met by increased activity by Palestinian armed groups – mainly the Jenin Brigades, and the new Lions’ Den, who emerged from the Al-Yasmina neighborhood in the old city of Nablus.
Although the Lions’ Den have made themselves known on different occasions throughout the past year, usually in short video clips and statements, the 2 September appearance was their first public, and overt, declaration of intent. Until then little was known about the group, apart from claims by Israeli intelligence services publicized (and embellished) in Israeli and Palestinian media.
Bureau chief of Al-Sharq, veteran journalist, and political analyst Mohammad Daraghmeh tells Jerusalem24 that the emerging Lions’ Den group is a never-seen-before phenomenon in the West Bank.
“A need for unity”
“I covered the First and Second Intifadas,” says Daraghmeh. “The Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades were separate from the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, and from Al-Qassam Brigades. Every faction had its military wing. Now, these groups are cross-faction, they don’t belong to one faction.”
What is unprecedented, explains Daraghmeh, is that young Palestinian men are rising above traditional differences between political factions, and engaging in armed combat side by side. … SOURCE