00:00This is the West Bank city of Tubas, where the Palestinian Authority has been rounding
00:05up militants fighting Israel's occupation, and who also challenge its own rule.
00:12Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wants to show the PA can help shape the future for
00:16Palestinians after the Gaza war is over. It has poured forces into Tubas, saying it aims
00:23to end lawlessness and deny Israel pretexts to raid the city.
00:27But Abbas' militant opponents, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, say the PA is serving Israel's agenda.
00:34Residents of Tubas said clashes between the militants and the Authority this month involved
00:39heavy machine guns and bombs in some of the worst violence they can remember.
00:44Tubas' governor, Ahmad al-Assad, said the PA was maintaining law and order.
00:48AHMAD AL-ASSAD, Governor of Tubas, Palestine It is inevitable that outlaws will protest
00:52what the PA is doing, but we are doing things according to the Palestinian law and constitution
00:57and abiding by it.
00:59On Saturday, dozens of PA security men surrounded a building near Tubas, where two militants
01:04were holed up. Abdul Majid al-Masri's son, Obada, was one of them. He threatened to blow
01:10himself up. A source familiar with the incident said, Abdul Majid was called to the scene
01:15to convince Obada to surrender.
01:17ABDUL MAJID AL-MASRI, Son of Obada Why didn't he want to surrender? He was saying
01:20that Palestinians are not supposed to shed Palestinian blood.
01:24Al-Masri said his son agreed, after receiving guarantees he would be held in Tubas, rather
01:29than at another PA jail, where he'd suffered mistreatment in the past.
01:33ABDUL MAJID AL-MASRI, Son of Obada The families of the wanted people are under
01:37immense pressure. We want a solution with the PA to either ensure the safety of our
01:41children, find a solution for them, or to stop pursuing them and hunting them down,
01:47and let the occupation only pursue them. It is difficult for us to have two sides looking
01:52for our children.
01:54Islamic Jihad condemned the operation, saying the PA was trying to eliminate resistance
01:59to Israel, and its methods were no different.
02:03The United States has said it wants postwar Gaza and the West Bank unified, under a reformed
02:08and revitalized PA.
02:10But a September opinion poll showed 89 percent of Palestinians in the West Bank want Abbas
02:15to resign, and that Hamas has more support than his Fatah movement there.
02:20Ghaith Al-Omri of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said Palestinian security
02:25forces are just really, really unpopular in the northern West Bank.
02:29GHAITH AL-OMRI, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Palestinian security forces
02:30are just really, really unpopular in the northern West Bank.
02:31The Palestinian Authority presents itself as the address for the day after in Gaza.
02:34However, many, not only Israelis, but I want to talk to American officials, Arab officials,
02:39they will say, if the PA cannot control the West Bank, how can we expect it to control
02:43Gaza, which is a much more complicated landscape?
02:47So the PA is trying to basically say, look, we are asserting ourselves.
02:51It highlights the precarious position of an authority formed in 1994 as a stepping stone
02:56to a state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital, a prospect
03:02that appears as far away as it ever did.
03:04As well as unpopular, critics view the PA as ineffective, a reputation that has overshadowed
03:10U.S.-led diplomatic contacts over any future role it might play.
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