Jihadist Samer, 22, about the October attack: Felt happiness and honor

JENIN. Peaceful coexistence is completely foreign to Samer Murad, 22, and his jihadist friends in the West Bank.

Their supporters in Gaza showed the way in October, he believes – now the West Bank can become a new front in the war.

– It’s us or them, he says with an automatic weapon in his lap.

The streets are narrower, muddier and darker than in the rest of Jenin. Inside the refugee camp up on one of the hills, it’s hard not to hear what the neighbors are arguing about or what they’re watching on TV. In the alleys, children run around, play and chase each other with plastic toy weapons.

After a change of car and a short walk, we arrived at the meeting point: a bombed-out backyard, in the middle of the refugee camp. The house was bombed by Israeli security forces in a raid last summer. Twelve people died.

Now Samer Murad is sitting cross-legged with his American M-16 automatic carbine across his knees. It bears a sticker with his group affiliation: Islamic Jihad in Palestine, IJP.
His family home is also partially destroyed by the Israelis. Samer Murad claims it was done as collective punishment.

– They attacked the house from the air. Both once and twice. They hope to create discord between the resistance movement and the civilians that way, says Samer Murad.

He, like most of the jihadists who surround us in the dark backyard and on the street, are all wanted and hunted by the Israeli security services.

“Feel happiness and honor”

The young men – none are over thirty – already have several years of prison behind them. Here in the refugee camp, they have really only changed one prison for another, says Samer Murad, 22:

– I am free, but I am surrounded from all sides, says the jihadist, referring to the iron ring of roadblocks, barbed wire, concrete walls and drone surveillance that surrounds the area.

Since October, Islamic Jihad in Palestine, IJP, is perhaps less well-known than Hamas, even though IJP is older. Today, they are the second largest group in Gaza, after Hamas. Their members also participated in the large-scale attack on Israel, on October 7, 2023 – albeit invited at the last minute.

Children, women and men were killed, raped or kidnapped with a brutality Israel had never seen in modern times.

In the jihadist stronghold of Jenin, the members of the IJP immediately got ready to embark on the same path as the brothers in Gaza, explains Samer Murad:

– I felt happiness and honor! Now we follow in their tracks, he says.

Armed violence most important

Most of his comrades are lightly armed with handguns. They dress like many men their age in sneakers, American baseball caps and sportswear. Islamic Jihad in Palestine is part of the so-called Jenin Brigade. They have never really cared that much about politics or about dressing like popular leaders, whether in a suit or in traditional dress. It is the armed violence that is most important to them. At least that’s what one of the world’s most recognized experts on the group, the Norwegian researcher Erik Skare, thinks:

– Hamas is a political movement that engages in the military field, while the IJP is a military movement that engages in politics, the researcher said in an interview to ICCT.

Both the USA and the EU draw the movements over the same comb and classify them both as terrorist movements.

– In the media in the West, we are constantly described as terrorists. All the focus is on the hostages that were taken, but no one is talking about all the Palestinian prisoners that Israel is holding hostage, says Samer Murad.

Burial site with members

Since October last year, Israel has been cracking down on the jihadists in the camp. This is evidenced not least by the new burial site, where the recently killed members are buried.

A few hundred people have gathered to honor the dead.

One of them, Hamid, was killed in an Israeli drone attack on March 25. The wreckage of the car he was in gapes empty on one of the city’s streets.
Next to his grave sits Karim, his 10-year-old brother with an automatic carbine.

– We usually distribute toys and such to the children, but I would like to have summer camps with them as well, like in Gaza. But it’s difficult here, says one of the group’s leading figures, Mohamad Sade, 29.

In Gaza’s summer camps, both the IJP and Hamas have taught children how to use weapons, use tunnels or treat hostages.

In January, the Israeli army accused the jihadists in Gaza of using child soldiers in the war.

In Jenin, the streets are filled with posters of those who have been killed by the Israelis, but also of people like Jihad Taleb, 25. When he was released from more than four years in Israeli prison, posters with his image were printed to congratulate him.

– Within 48 hours I was back in Islamic Jihad, explains Jihad Taleb.

In Jenin, the word “endorsing violence” would have a very positive connotation if it existed. But here we speak of “resistance”. Raids by Israeli forces are called “invasion”. Arrests are likened to “kidnappings”.

Israel’s hundreds of military laws that have been in use for decades in the West Bank open up an extremely large field of arbitrariness, according to several human rights organizations such as Amnesty International. What should be considered illegal, political activity and support for terrorism is murky to say the least. Not least if it happens in a crowd of more than ten people (military order 101). Military Order 101 nips much of civilian society in the bud.

– I fight for a free Palestine, from the river to the sea, says Jihad Taleb.

For him, that expression is not about a compromise solution or about reconciliation.

“This is my country”

In the backyard, they weld scrap iron into roadblocks to stop Israeli military vehicles as they drive into Jenin. They also want to show us the weapons factory they use. The men change their mind as they believe they must first hide some bombs and weapons that could explode in the move.

Security in the city should actually be controlled by the Palestinian Authority, PA, based in Ramallah. This does not prevent the Israelis from making regular raids in search of jihadists. Since the Gaza war broke out, the Israeli presence has increased considerably.

A source with good local knowledge believes that the movement has lost close to three-quarters of active members since the Gaza war began on October 7, 2023. Either in prison or dead.

According to the Palestinian prisoner support organization, Addameer, Israel has imprisoned 8,150 Palestinians since October 7, 2023 – “including over 250 women, 500 children and 63 journalists”.

At the same time, outside support for the various jihadist groups is increasing.

According to security sources to New York Timesquoted the other week, Iran has significantly increased arms smuggling to the West Bank with the aim of “opening a new hotbed”.

On his phone, Mohamad Sade, 29, shows off night vision equipment he says he intends to acquire.

Despite the fact that he has relatives in both Germany and Sweden, he intends to stay in Palestine.

– This is my country. I want to liberate it, he says.

At the new burial site, a man preaches from the podium that the deliverance can happen as early as next year, God willing.

Then it starts to rain and the crowd disperses.