A Show of Support for Hamas in a Rival’s Backyard

On the day that Hamas’s political leader was assassinated in Iran, small groups of Palestinians in a number of West Bank cities turned out to protest, some chanting pro-Hamas slogans and waving the armed group’s green flag.

Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, condemned the July 31 killing of the leader, Ismail Haniyeh. The Palestinian Authority, a political adversary of Hamas, ordered flags to be lowered to half-staff and called for a day of strikes and business closures, while a wake for Mr. Haniyeh drew political leaders from across the West Bank.

This outpouring of sympathy was notable because unlike Gaza, which Hamas has controlled for most of the past two decades, the West Bank and the Palestinian Authority are dominated by Hamas’s main rival, the more moderate Fatah faction. And the Palestinian Authority generally has shown little tolerance for such open shows of support for armed groups in the past, at times using force to break them up.

In the 10 months since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, the Palestinian Authority has been losing support to factions like Hamas that favor armed struggle and are actively fighting Israel, according to a recent poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. At the same time, deadly Israeli raids and attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank have escalated.

Israeli officials say those raids are aimed at preventing a second front from opening up in the West Bank while the war in Gaza is ongoing. Israel also accuses some of the armed groups in the West Bank of plotting attacks against it.

“The P.A. is reading the room right now,” said Tahani Mustafa, a senior Palestine analyst at the International Crisis Group. “If they were to clamp down on Hamas supporters, it would be absolutely disastrous,” she added.