The alleys are shrouded in permanent semi-darkness, covered with black nylon tarps to hide the Palestinian fighters there from Israeli drones. Green Hamas flags and banners commemorating “martyrs” hang from the buildings, many of which have been badly damaged in Israeli raids and airstrikes in an attempt to a growing militancy in the area, fueled by the war in Gaza.
This is not Gaza or a traditional Hamas stronghold. It is a refugee camp in Tulkarm, a city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where the relatively moderate Palestinian faction of Fatah has long held sway.
Recently, I met a local commander of these young militants, Muhammad Jaber, 25, in one of those dusty, ruined alleys. He, one of Israel’s most wanted men, and other fighters like him say they have shifted their allegiances from the relatively moderate Fatah faction, which dominates the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to more radical groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
Wanted what lesson he had learned because of the war in Gaza, Mr. Jaber paused to think.
“Patience,” he said. “And strength. And courage.”
Refugee camps in the northern West Bank, such as Tulkarm, have been hotbeds of militancy for years, long before the Gaza war, as fighters pushed back against ever-increasing Israeli settlement activity and the peace process’s failure to bring about a Palestinian state. After October 7, Hamas urged Palestinians to join the uprising against Israel, a call some in these camps appear to have heeded.
Militants like Mr. Jaber want to drive Israelis out of the West Bank, which Israel occupied after the 1967 war, and some, like Hamas, want to drive Israelis out of the region entirely.
According to both the fighters themselves and Israeli military officials, the West Bank is seeing an increase in the production of weapons and explosives. They say the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank, is losing ground to more radical Palestinian factions, which are actively fighting Israel and are receiving more support from Iran in the form of cash and weapons smuggled into the area.
Fatah recognizes Israel’s right to exist and cooperates with its army. But some militants linked to Fatah, part of the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades that were crucial to the second intifada of the early 2000s, have never respected the Palestinian Authority and its compromises with Israel and the occupation. Some, like Mr. Jaber, have simply declared their new allegiance to the more hardline Islamist factions.
Mr. Jaber, commonly known by his nom de guerre, Abu Shujaa, meaning Father of the Brave, commands the local branch of Islamic Jihad, which dominates the Tulkarm camp. He also heads a collective of all militant factions in that area, including the Aqsa Martyrs Brigade there, known as the Khatiba. He switched from Fatah, he said, because it was Islamic Jihad and Hamas that were taking the fight to Israel to end the occupation and create Palestine by force of arms.
Mr. Jaber gained something of a cult following in the spring when the Israeli army announced that it had killed him during a raid on the Tulkarm camp. Three days later, he emerged alive at the funeral of other Palestinians killed during the same raid, amid joyful shouts from camp residents.
We met in an alleyway lined with streets stripped to sand by Israeli bulldozers, before ducking into a storefront to avoid being spotted by drones. Thin and bearded, wearing a black Hugo Boss T-shirt and a Sig Sauer pistol on his hip, Mr. Jaber was watched by six bodyguards, some armed with M16 and M4 rifles loaded with magazines and optical sights.
It was a scorching hot day, everything was covered in dust and layered on the leaves of the few trees. The area has been badly damaged by Israeli drone strikes and armored bulldozers, which destroyed many kilometers of pavement in what the military said was an attempt to uncover roadside bombs and other explosives.
The atmosphere was stifling, mixed with wariness as spotters and bodyguards searched for undercover Israeli soldiers, who sometimes arrived disguised as city workers, garbage men or vendors pushing carts of fruit and vegetables.
Even before October 7, Israel was battling the growing threat of Palestinian militants like Mr. Jaber in refugee camps in the towns and cities of the northern West Bank, including Tulkarm, Jenin and Nablus. Militant groups gained a foothold in the camps, which were originally set up to house refugees from the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli war but later became impoverished urban settlements.
In the months leading up to the Gaza war, Israeli forces raided West Bank camps to root out weapons, find explosives factories and arrest or kill leaders like Mr. Jaber. Nearly a year ago, among other operations, a major Israeli raid on Jenin took place.
The Palestinian Authority and police no longer have control over these refugee camps, where the militants threaten to shoot officers if they try to enter, according to the militants, Israeli military officials and Palestinian officials, including Jenin Governor Kamal Abu al-Rub.
The Israeli actions are aimed at combating what a senior Israeli military official called the terrorist infrastructure: command centers, explosives labs and underground facilities that militants have tried to set up there using Iranian money and weapons.
Over the past two years, the West Bank camps have become safe havens, the officer noted, because the Palestinian Authority no longer operates there. The officer requested anonymity in accordance with Israeli military rules.
When the Israeli army attacks Tulkarm or Jenin, residents say the Palestinian Authority security forces remain in their barracks in the city centers and do not engage them.
While Mr Jaber insisted he was not at war with the Palestinian Authority, he condemned those “who have weapons and stand with Israel and do nothing.”
“The liberation of our country is our religion,” he said. “This is not my conflict, but the conflict of the people, a war for land, freedom and dignity.”
On Sunday, an Israeli drone strike on a house in the camp killed a family member: Saeed Jaber, 25, a wanted militant who had also switched from Fatah to Islamic Jihad.
Mr Abu al-Rub, the governor, does not deny that the authority’s security forces remain outside the refugee camps, but he blames Israel. “If Israel doesn’t come, there will be no problems,” he said. “Israel is constantly working to create division among us because if they kill the people, they can take the country.” It is Israel, he said, “that is causing chaos, that is invading our refugee camps for no reason, killing our youth, weakening the PA and making people lose respect for their government.”
In the alleys of another impoverished Tulkarm refugee camp, a young man appeared, dressed in fashionable black with North Face and Under Armor logos. At the age of 18, he said he had been wounded several times and would identify himself only as Qutaybah, his nom de guerre, in honor of an Arab general from more than a thousand years ago. He belongs to Hamas, which dominates his camp.
Qutaybah has a long scar on his left arm, another on his stomach, and a black mark over his left eye, which he said he lost in a drone strike on Dec. 19. He said his previous wounds were sustained in May 2023, when Israeli soldiers disguised as city workers entered the camp.
He said he was seriously wounded in the attack, which killed two others. His family members later confirmed his story, but it could not be confirmed directly with Israeli authorities.
Qutaybah was carrying an M16 with an optical sight, one of two weapons he said he stole during the attack an attack in May on Bat Heferan Israeli village bordering the West Bank. The attack shocked many Israelis and appeared to make a quiet part of Israel less safe, foreshadowing further military action to counter the Palestinian fighters.
“Nobody comes to you and tells you to join the resistance,” Qutaybah said. ‘What do we actually have here? We live in a prison.”
He and his friends have learned some lessons from Gaza, he added.
“We see the Israelis killing our innocent women and children. Their plan is to carry out genocide here,” he said. At the very least, Gaza will “encourage more people in the West Bank to resist.”
Qutaybah rubbed his black sneaker on broken pavement in the alley.
“There’s a bomb underneath,” he said. “When the Israelis come.”
The bodyguards and fighters stationed at the camp entrances work in shifts. They carry walkie-talkies to warn of Israeli incursions and any foreigner who might risk intruding.
Most of those fighters, like Hassan, 35, have served time in Israeli prisons. Hassan has three daughters but would not talk about them, their future or his family name, only about his mission.
“Every entrance is blocked and watched,” he said. “The Israelis can come in at any moment.”
Also in the alley was Ayham Sroudji, 15, who was born in the refugee camp. He is not a member of any militant group and says he does well in school, when it is not canceled because of violence.
Did he want to become a teacher and help his people in that way? “Become a teacher?” he replied. “That doesn’t exist here. What have I seen in my life, except Israeli soldiers invading my camp?”
When asked about his dreams, he said, “I want to see a beach. I’ve never seen a beach in my life.”
Next to him stood Ahmed, 17, with an M4 rifle. “Isn’t there anyone who doesn’t want to see the beach, the land they took from us?” Ahmed said.
“I dream of seeing Jerusalem liberated,” Ayham added. “Israelis live in our land and enjoy it, and we want to drive them out of what they stole.”
Then he pointed around him, at the dust, the rubble, the guns.
“Look what we wake up to,” he said. ‘Do you even see a sidewalk? Sometimes I dream of a smooth sidewalk and sidewalk.”
Rami Nazzal contributed to Tulkarm and Jenin’s reporting, and Natan Odenheimer from Jerusalem.
