Beirut, Lebanon – The Palestinian Authority’s (PA) ban on Al Jazeera is part of a broader attempt to silence criticism of its security operation in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, according to activists and analysts.

The ban came almost a month after the PA launched a crackdown on a coalition of armed groups that call themselves the Jenin Brigades.

The groups are affiliated with Palestinian factions such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and even Fatah, the party that controls the PA.

Since early December, the PA has besieged the Jenin camp and cut off water and electricity to most of the inhabitants in an ostensible attempt to restore “law and order” across the West Bank.

However, its indiscriminate tactics in Jenin coincide with a wider attack on free speech, activists and human rights groups told Al Jazeera.

Repression and censorship

Activists and rights groups said dozens of people have been summoned and interrogated – some beaten – over social media posts opposing the PA’s operation in Jenin, although prominent Palestinian personalities have still been able to write critical posts about the security operation.

Most of those detained have been released, but some were forced to upload apology videos, according to rights groups.

Sanad, Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency, reviewed and verified three apology videos that were circulating online.

“There is tension over the PA’s operation and people don’t feel safe to speak about it or to share with us what happened to them when they were detained,” said Murad Jadallah, an activist with Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights group in the West Bank.

The PA was born out of the Oslo Accords between Palestinian and Israeli leaders in 1993. It mandated that the PA recognise Israel and eliminate Palestinian armed groups in exchange for a Palestinian state alongside Israel by 1999.

Israel, however, has used the last 30 years to expand illegal settlements on large swaths of stolen Palestinian land, nearly tripling the number of settlers in the occupied West Bank.

As an occupying power, it still controls most aspects of Palestinian life and frequently carries out raids, killings and arrests in the West Bank, even in areas where the PA is supposed to be in full control.

Despite dimming hopes for statehood, the PA has stuck to its mandate under the Oslo Accords, leading to accusations from many Palestinians that the administration is effectively cooperating with Israel to maintain the occupation.

Over the years, the PA has also escalated repression against Palestinian opponents and dissidents. In 2021, the PA arrested critic and activist Nizar Banat, who died in custody.

According to Amnesty International, the PA has failed to adequately investigate his death.

More recently, on December 28, a sniper shot dead Shatha al-Sabbagh, a female journalist who had been speaking to residents in the camp about the security operation.

Her family blamed the PA forces, yet the PA denied responsibility and blamed “outlaws” for her death.

Four days later, the PA banned Al Jazeera – believed to be the most popular media network in the occupied West Bank.

“If this decision is enforced, it means Al Jazeera … won’t be able to monitor what it is monitoring and documenting today,” said Munir Nuseibah, a political analyst with Palestinian think tank Al-Shabaka.

“This will affect the Palestinian cause as a whole. Al Jazeera … reports Palestine to the world,” he told Al Jazeera.

“The way the Palestinian Authority is dealing with the situation right now is that there is just one truth and that truth is their narrative,” said Al-Haq’s Jadallah.

Disinformation

Some PA officials have claimed that armed groups in the Jenin camp are part of a broader Iranian-backed conspiracy or “extremist outlaws” aiming to undermine the Palestinian quest for statehood.

According to Ahmed Mohamed*, an activist monitoring digital freedoms in the Palestinian territory, the PA’s rhetoric aims to link the Jenin Brigades to a foreign plot to discredit them as a legitimate resistance against Israel’s occupation.

“This is a rehashing of Israeli propaganda … which claims that Palestinians are not acting out of their own will, but on direction from Iran and that Iran is the big boogeyman,” Mohamed said.

“There is merit that Iran supports resistance activities in Palestine and oppressive regimes elsewhere, but the PA is trying to claim they are the ones who have Palestinians in their mind and have a pro-Palestinian policy,” he added.

Iran has traditionally provided financial and military aid to Hamas and PIJ – two of the factions that loosely make up the Jenin Brigades – as part of its broader policy to challenge Israeli and US hegemony in the region.

However, Hamas and PIJ are not puppets and remain rooted in their quest to resist Israel’s occupation, according to a report by the European Council on Foreign Relations, a United Kingdom-based think tank.

Meanwhile, the PA’s main donors are the United States and Europe, whose stances often conflict with wider Palestinian aspirations and views.

Social media platforms seen as close to the PA have been sharing one video showing four men in white trousers, white tunics and ill-fitting white hoods over their heads. The men also appear to be wearing explosive packs on their torsos and claim they will blow themselves up if PA security forces enter the Jenin camp.

Some of these PA-affiliated pages claim the men belong to an “extremist” battalion called 313, which is also the name of a unit that fights with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Sanad said the video was never uploaded on any social media pages affiliated with the Jenin Brigades and “appears to have been created to mislead the public”.

“There is no battalion officially named Battalion 313 [in Jenin],” Sanad found.

Coercion and intimidation

The head of a leading human rights group in the West Bank, who requested anonymity due to fear of reprisal, said the PA was also coercing civil servants to partake in demonstrations supporting the Jenin operation.

“[Civil servants] risk being punished if they are considered absent [at these pro-PA protests],” the source told Al Jazeera.

“They could receive administrative penalties or a call from the PA security forces.”

Al Jazeera obtained a copy of an official government letter that appears to verify the claim.

The letter was addressed to the mayor of Masafer Yatta in Hebron and requested that certain employees not be punished for not showing up to a demonstration on behalf of the PA on December 24.

As such, the letter indicates that employees would normally be penalised for missing a pro-PA demonstration.

Jadallah, from Al-Haq, added that PA security forces often confiscate the phones of people they interrogate and replace their critical social media with posts that lionise the PA and its operation in Jenin.

Palestinian security forces warned detainees not to delete the new posts once they were released, he said.

The human rights organisation head also argued that the PA is instrumentalising cybercrime laws – and laws to combat incitement – to justify muzzling free speech.

In 2017, the PA passed – by decree – a cybercrime law that made it possible for authorities to arrest people for “inciting hatred” on social media and for “disturbing public order”.

Critics of the cyberlaw argued the laws, which were broadly worded, could be abused by the PA to enhance cyber-surveillance and stifle dissent – a longstanding practice of the Israeli occupation.

“The laws are being applied to suppress any criticism of the Jenin operation and particularly harsh criticism,” the source said.

“If anyone shows open support for the Jenin brigades … then they risk being summoned.”