Hamas Seeks to Enhance Popularity in Lebanon’s Palestinian Camps

Lebanese soldiers at the entrance to the Ain al-Hilweh camp in southern Lebanon during clashes last summer between Palestinian factions (AFP)
Lebanese soldiers at the entrance to the Ain al-Hilweh camp in southern Lebanon during clashes last summer between Palestinian factions (AFP)
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Hamas Seeks to Enhance Popularity in Lebanon’s Palestinian Camps

Lebanese soldiers at the entrance to the Ain al-Hilweh camp in southern Lebanon during clashes last summer between Palestinian factions (AFP)
Lebanese soldiers at the entrance to the Ain al-Hilweh camp in southern Lebanon during clashes last summer between Palestinian factions (AFP)

Palestinian officials in Lebanon consider the Hamas movement’s decision to establish a new unit under the name of the Vanguards of the Al-Aqsa Flood, as an effort to increase its popularity in the Palestinian camps and enhance its role at the expense of the Fatah movement, which has long been seen as the most prominent Palestinian faction in the country.
Palestinian sources close to Fatah believe that Hamas wants to exploit the war in Gaza to increase its popularity in the Palestinian refugee camps, in light of the great sympathy it enjoys after the Oct. 7.
They noted that the primary goal of the Vanguards of the Al-Aqsa Flood was to attract young people and mobilize them intellectually and then militarily to form the nucleus of a military force for Hamas outside Palestine.
Early last week, Hamas called on “young and heroic men” to join the “Vanguards of the resistance.” The movement’s sources later explained that the project was linked to Lebanon and “does not aim exclusively to gather more fighters, but rather to include more individuals in Hamas, who are active in more than one segment.”
Ghassan Ayoub, a member of the Palestinian Joint Action Committee in Lebanon, told Asharq Al-Awsat that there was “a rush on the part of the movement to search for how to invest in the aggression against Gaza.”
For his part, the director of the Development Center for Strategic Studies and Human Development, Palestinian Researcher Hisham Dibsi, pointed to “field data in the camps indicating that [Hamas] wants to invest in this militia formation, by attracting the largest possible number of members, who are dazzled by the acts of violence, fighting, and victories that Hamas claims to have achieved.”
According to the Lebanese Central Bureau of Statistics and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, there are 230,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon living in 12 camps and 156 Palestinian communities in the governorates of Lebanon.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), in a census conducted about 11 years ago, confirmed the presence of more than 483,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.



Israeli Defense Minister Says He Will End Detention without Charge of Jewish Settlers

Palestinians look at damaged cars after an Israeli settlers attack in Al-Mazraa Al-Qibleyeh near Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, November 20, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinians look at damaged cars after an Israeli settlers attack in Al-Mazraa Al-Qibleyeh near Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, November 20, 2024. (Reuters)
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Israeli Defense Minister Says He Will End Detention without Charge of Jewish Settlers

Palestinians look at damaged cars after an Israeli settlers attack in Al-Mazraa Al-Qibleyeh near Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, November 20, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinians look at damaged cars after an Israeli settlers attack in Al-Mazraa Al-Qibleyeh near Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, November 20, 2024. (Reuters)

Israel’s new defense minister said Friday that he would stop issuing warrants to arrest West Bank settlers or hold them without charge or trial — a largely symbolic move that rights groups said risks emboldening settler violence in the Israeli-occupied territory.

Israel Katz called the arrest warrants “severe” and said issuing them was “inappropriate” as Palestinian militant attacks on settlers in the territory grow more frequent. He said settlers could be “brought to justice” in other ways.

The move protects Israeli settlers from being held in “administrative detention,” a shadowy form of incarceration where people are held without charge or trial.

Settlers are rarely arrested in the West Bank, where settler violence against Palestinians has spiraled since the outbreak of the war Oct. 7.

Katz’s decision was celebrated by far-right coalition allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. National Security Minister and settler firebrand Itamar Ben-Gvir applauded Katz and called the move a “correction of many years of mistreatment” and “justice for those who love the land.”

Since Oct. 7, 2023, violence toward Palestinians by Israeli settlers has soared to new heights, displacing at least 19 entire Palestinian communities, according to Israeli rights group Peace Now. In that time, attacks by Palestinian militants on settlers and within Israel have also grown more common.

An increasing number of Palestinians have been placed in administrative detention. Israel holds 3,443 administrative detainees in prison, according to data from the Israeli Prison Service, reported by rights group Hamoked. That figure stood around 1,200 just before the start of the war. The vast majority of them are Palestinian, with only a handful at any given time Israeli Jews, said Jessica Montell, the director of Hamoked.

“All of these detentions without charge or trial are illegitimate, but to declare that this measure will only be used against Palestinians...is to explicitly entrench another form of ethnic discrimination,” said Montell.