Residents Block Palestinian Authority from Arresting Tulkarm Battalion Commander

GAZA – A group of citizens Palestine in the city of Tulkarm, northern West Bank, preventing Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces from arresting Tulkarm Battalion Commander Muhammad Jaber Abu Shuja (Abu Shuja) from the Thabet Thabet Governmental Hospital.

A Quds Press correspondent reported that PA security forces surrounded Tulkarm Hospital to arrest the commander of the Tulkarm Battalion, but Palestinians gathered and arrived at the hospital to thwart the arrest operation.

It was reported that Palestinians managed to remove Abu Shuja from the hospital and take him to Nour Shams camp after PA security forces withdrew from the vicinity of the hospital.

Palestinian resistance factions in Tulkarm declared a high alert status in Nour Shams camp in Tulkarm to prevent PA forces from arresting the commander of the Tulkarm Battalion.

Local sources reported heavy shelling of Tulkarm camp by Tulkarm Battalion and Nour Shams camp Battalion directed at PA security agencies.

The Tulkarm Battalion threatened that if the PA forces did not withdraw from the city of Tulkarm and did not arrest the commander, Abu Shuja, the response would be harsh.

Earlier, the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, and the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement, urged Tulkarem residents to head to Tulkarem hospital and lift the siege on the commander of the Al-Quds Brigades Battalion, who was besieged by PA security forces.

The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas announced: “The behavior of the PA security agencies in pursuing resistance fighters has reached a dangerous level.”

The movement added in a press statement received by Quds Press: “The behavior of the security forces affiliated with the PA in pursuing resistance fighters, arresting them and confiscating their weapons, the latest of which occurred today in Tulkarem Governorate, after Mohammad Jaber Abu Shuja was besieged inside Thabet Thabet Hospital where he was being treated, has reached its most dangerous stage. All Palestinian nationalists must call to denounce and condemn such behavior and work hard to stop it.”

“While we commend the high level of public awareness and the quick response of the people of Tulkarm to prevent the arrest of Mujahid Abu Shuja, we affirm that the PA leadership must restrain the security agencies and prevent them from carrying out resistance and those wanted by the Zionist occupation in the occupied West Bank, release the resistance fighters held in its prisons, and use its weapons to protect the Palestinian people who are subjected to genocide,” the movement continued.

The movement added: “The security agencies’ continued shooting of the resistance fighters and confiscating their weapons and what they have prepared to defend our people against the occupation forces and settlers contradicts the united national position that adopts resistance in all its forms, which was emphasized by Beijing’s recent statements. The policies adopted by the PA security agencies are detrimental to the struggle of our Palestinian people who are setting the most remarkable examples of steadfastness and challenging the criminal occupation machine in the Gaza Strip.”

(ahm)