Episode 41: The Lion’s Den: Resistance in Palestine

First aired on 05 November 2022

A new resistance group announced its formation in August - The Lion's Den of Nablus. It has issued a stream of statements and has called for a massive mobilization against the occupation.

The Lion’s Den showcases a new unity in the Palestinian resistance factions as it includes Fatah as well as Palestinian Islamic Jihad,

Hamas and the PFLP. This is both symbolically and practically important as Nablus is a Fatah stronghold. We have even seen some Palestinian security personnel engaging in armed resistance, ignoring and directly challenging the Fatah and Palestinian Authority leadership.

The PA is being pressured into doing the bidding of the occupation and this is driving more of a wedge between it and the Palestinian people.

Since the emergence of the Lion’s Den, other parts of the West Bank have followed suit and launched their own Lion's Den groups or in one case a “Falcon’s nest” In a statement in October they said We bring to you the news of the activation of a Falcons' Nest Brigade cell in Qalqilya.

And what is coming is greater." Qalqilya is also traditionally a Fatah stronghold. The context of this new unity is that since 1993 the number of settlers in the West Bank has almost tripled.

In May, Israel embarked on a new operation to counter the rise of attacks called “Break the Wave.” The operation would focus on repairing the separation wall and fighting the rise of resistance groups in the Jenin refugee camp and Nablus, not least through large-scale arrest campaigns.

In the first half of October, the Israeli military conducted 145 search-and-arrest operations and arrested 127 Palestinians, including 13 children, across the West Bank.

At the same time, Israel faced an increasing number of resistance operations, up from 19 in 2020 to 98 in 2021.

This year, and until the end of September, there have already been around 130 attacks.

The Lion’s Den has taken heavy casualties. But it also reported that a significant number of occupation force casualties resulted from a raid on Nablus in late October - none of which are referred to in the Zionist press.

The new, coordinated generation of Palestinian resistance fighters has forced the occupiers to recognize they cannot simply attack with impunity.

The occupiers appear to be panicking. The former head of Shin Bet (the Zionist internal intelligence agency) stated in the Zionist press on 22 October "We are on the brink of a civil war.

The Zionist entity is standing on the edge of the abyss, an abyss of internal social and national disintegration. This is the real existential threat." As the Lion's Den has repeatedly said: current events will answer the question of Who is besieging who?