ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
As negotiators try to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza, there's more fighting in another Palestinian territory, the Israeli-occupied West Bank. This fighting is not just between Israelis and Palestinians, it's between different Palestinian groups. NPR's Emily Feng reports. And a warning - this story contains the sound of gunshots.
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: NPR producer Nuha Musleh and I drive on a dusty road towards the Jenin refugee camp.
NUHA MUSLEH, BYLINE: That's the camp. You see it? Right in front of you.
FENG: The camp is a warren of multistory buildings and twisting alleys. And as we approach, we hear the gunshots.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUNSHOTS)
FENG: It's a firefight between soldiers for the Palestinian Authority, or PA, which governs much of the West Bank, and another faction of Palestinians inside the Jenin camp. Soon, we hear someone has been killed and taken to the hospital.
MUSLEH: (Non-English language spoken).
FENG: We enter a waiting room already full of tear-streaked family members and masked PA soldiers, assault rifles strapped to their chests. One woman is overcome with grief.
LAMYA YOUSEF-MAHMOUD: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: She tells us the PA fatally shot her husband after he went up to the roof of their home, and her son later died.
YOUSEF-MAHMOUD: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: She begins shouting at the PA soldiers. May you suffer like we are suffering, she says. Then her mother joins in.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: She yells she would have expected this from the Jews, meaning Israel, but not from fellow Arabs. The Jenin Camp houses Palestinian refugees, including those expelled from their homes by Israeli forces. In 2002, the Israeli army briefly occupied the camp after deadly fighting, and it last raided it this past September. And the camp has remained a stronghold for resistance against Israel. But this time, it is Palestinian forces attacking the camp. It started this past December. Iyad Eesa, an intelligence officer with the PA, explains.
IYAD EESA: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: He says the PA is trying to root out what he calls outlaws hiding inside the Jenin Camp. He accused them of trying to undermine the PA by showing it cannot control Jenin city and giving Israel's military a pretext to come in. Rady Jarai is a former PA minister. He adds the PA also has ambitions of governing Gaza if there is a ceasefire with Israel. But...
RADY JARAI: In order to give you a role in Gaza, you have to settle problems here in the West Bank.
FENG: So the PA is trying to prove themselves by first eliminating resistance in the Jenin Camp. But in trying to stamp them out, the PA risks losing popular support.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUNSHOTS)
FENG: Gunfire punctuates an imam singing at Friday prayers. I'm now at the mosque abutting the Jenin Camp with Mohammad Abahara. He's a radiologist at the hospital on the camp's periphery.
You hear this every day?
MOHAMMAD ABAHARA: I hear this every day from four years.
FENG: Camp residents say the fighting has destroyed the camp's power and water lines. And yet, like most, Abahara staunchly supports the Jenin fighters, not the PA.
ABAHARA: The fighter is our defense against the Israeli army because our government cannot protect us.
FENG: The fighters are mostly young men who have fought and sometimes died fighting Israeli security forces. Now they are refusing to put down their arms against the PA, which Jenin resident Moustafa Jarrar accuses of despotism. He says, a few weeks ago, PA soldiers detained him because he was walking without his ID, then beat him.
MOUSTAFA JARRAR: Yeah.
FENG: You're the son of the mayor.
JARRAR: Yeah, I actually never expected it to happen.
FENG: The deaths resulting from this fight with the PA are dividing Palestinians at a time when many feel unity is needed. Retired hospital administrator Suleiman Turkman has been trying to mediate a truce.
SULEIMAN TURKMAN: Two groups, they are two brothers.
FENG: Meaning the PA and Jenin Camp fighters are on the same side, he says, fighting their common enemy, Israel.
TURKMAN: This a problem for the Palestinian people. They have to find a solution, not only in Jenin. It's from the whole West Bank, from inside and outside. We have to find a solution for that. Otherwise, we lose everything.
FENG: He fears this Palestinian-on-Palestinian violence could spread to other refugee camps, ultimately giving Israel the upper hand in deciding not just a ceasefire in Gaza but also the future of Palestinians in the West Bank.
Emily Feng, NPR News, Jenin. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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