Exclusive TPS interview with former Al Aqsa operative on the new Lions’ Den terror cell
Someone who was once a senior member of the “Al Aqsa Martyrs” brigade, formerly known as Ish Hakhalim, who cooperated with Hezbollah, spent many years in an Israeli prison, and who is now very close to the new “Lion’s Den” terror group in Nablus, revealed in an exclusive interview with TPS new details about the group that is troubling both Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Suspect arrested in Shuafat
The man who was active in early 2000 and was one of the driving forces behind the armed intifada has until now refused to be interviewed by foreign media. He wishes, however, to remain anonymous.
The activist tells TPS that the Lion’s Den group represents the birth of a new national revolutionary phenomenon, which pulled the rug from under the feet of the PA’s leadership and crushed the dream of American General Keith Dayton who wanted to build a significant Palestinian military force to fight terrorism.
General Dayton served as the American security coordinator between Israel and the PA from 2005 to 2010. He helped the PA build security mechanisms that were popularly known as the “Dayton Forces” and which form the backbone of security coordination with Israel.
The activist says that the members of Lions’ Den are establishing local headquarters in all the Palestinian cities and their goal is to establish themselves in every village and camp and become a new revolutionary national organization that operates with great power while opposing the PA.
According to him, the headquarters that are now being established are indeed separate from each other, but they all adopt the name Lion’s Den. He added that this is not about dozens of individuals in Nablus alone, as people tend to think in Israel, but Lions’ Den groups are a national and not a local phenomenon.
“The Lions managed to escape the watchful eye of the Israeli Shin Bet and proved that both the Palestinian Authority, the Americans and the Shin Bet cannot stand up to the new spirit of resistance,” he said.
The activist testifies that the “lions” get support from Hamas and work under the direction of the Hamas leadership.
Most of the young commanders in the new organization are members of Hamas” and according to him, “the brain belongs to Hamas and the hands belong to Fatah”.
He described Lion’s Den as an, “improved model of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ organization – these are Fatah activists who work under Hamas.”
“In 2000, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs operated in coordination with Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guards and also in coordination with Hamas, but today the situation is different and Hamas plays a much more significant role in the establishment of the armed organization” but that “it is not possible to reveal all the things nor the extent of the involvement of Hamas,” concluded the source from Nablus.
The people who are members of the group are members of the generation that was born and grew up after the armed intifada of 2000. These are young people who have completely despaired of the Palestinian leadership and the Fatah leadership, but this is the only factor capable of uniting all parts of the Palestinian people and motivating them to action, he explained.
The decision to establish Lion’s Den was made after the assassination of Ibrahim Al Nabulsi, one of the leaders of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades. With the elimination of Nabulsi, the equator in the development of the “battalions” and armed groups in Samaria, came the decision to establish the group in its current composition.
Nabulsi was one of the leaders of the battalions in Nablus and his assassination was not yet aimed at Bassam Saadi, a senior member of the GAP from Jenin, whose arrest led to Operation Dawn in the Gaza Strip.
Also at the meeting was Matzaev Shteyhe, the Hamas operative whose arrest by the PA led to violence between the Lions’ Den and the PA.
And he adds, “The appearance of the lions reminds me of the appearance of Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs a few months before the second intifada in which they were one of the main perpetrators and dragged it into an armed bloody struggle.
From his talks with TPS, it appears that the Palestinian Authority is trying to break up the group. To that end, it is offering people wages and is also offering to purchase weapons from their people for large sums, but so far this policy has failed.
The activist asses the Lion’s Den saying in the place where the Palestinian Authority failed, with all its sophisticated means of communication and its various means, the people of the Lion’s Den proved that they have the power to overcome the internal division between the parts of the Palestinian people, between Gaza and the West Bank
