Tanzim

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Tanzim
التنظيم Al-Tanẓīm
ActiveFounded in 1995
CountryPalestine
Allegiance Fatah
TypeMilitant faction
RoleCommunity-level operations
Engagements Second Intifada
Commanders
Current
commander		Led by Marwan Barghouti (serving life sentences for murder in Israel)

Tanzim (Arabic : التنظيمAl-Tanẓīm, "The Organization") was a militant faction of the Palestinian Fatah movement.

Contents

Formerly led by Marwan Barghouti, who is serving life sentences for murder in Israel, it had gained prominence during the Second Intifada. Tanzim operateed at the community level and had significantly pulled Palestinian support from Islamist groups. It had participated in violent acts against both military and civilian targets, and some of its members had even conducted suicide bombings.

Overview

The Tanzim militia, founded in 1995 by Yasser Arafat and other Fatah leaders to counter Palestinian Islamism, [1] was widely considered to be an armed offshoot of Fatah with its own leadership structure. The acknowledged head of the Tanzim was Marwan Barghouti, who (as of 2017) is serving five consecutive life sentences in Israel for murder. [2]

The Tanzim was a grass roots organization that operates at the community level. By taking a hardline position against Israel, it had helped siphoned/diverted Palestinian support from the Islamist groups to the Palestinian Authority and PLO leadership. [2]

Tanzim had came to prominence in the street fighting which marked the beginning of the second Palestinian Intifada. Its members tended to be younger than those of other Fatah factions, often having grown up in the post-Oslo era. Many Tanzim members had joined the al-Shaid Yasser Arafat Brigades (also known as the al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades). Tanzim had also recruited female suicide bombers, including Andaleeb Takatka, a 20-year-old Bethlehem woman who had detonated an explosive belt at a Jerusalem bus stop in April 2002, which had killed six Israeli civilians, and injured sixty.[ citation needed ] Marwan Barghouti, who was widely described as heading Tanzim, explicitly condemned terror attacks within Israel, writing "While I, and the Fatah movement to which I belong, strongly oppose attacks and the targeting of civilians inside Israel, our future neighbour, I reserve the right to protect myself, to resist the Israeli occupation of my country and to fight for my freedom." [3]

At the beginning of the Second Intifada, Hussein Abayat, leader of Tanzim in Beit Sahur, was killed in a helicopter attack by the IDF on 9 November 2000. The operation is considered the first time that Israel publicly acknowledged conducting a targeted killing. [4] [5] Abayat's assistant Khaled Salahat was severely wounded in the strike. [4] [6]

On 15 February 2015, the Israeli army arrested Jamal Abu Lel, charging that he was "the head of" the Tanzim "terrorist organization", running it from the Qalandiya refugee camp while carrying an Israeli permanent resident identity card [7] due to his residing in Kfar Aqab, on the other side of the Jerusalem Airport from Qalandiya. [8] Abu Lel is accused by the Shin Bet of funding and directing terrorist and shooting attacks against Israelis. [7]

List of attacks

Fatah Tanzim have conducted a number of attacks against Israeli targets in the West Bank. Below is a partial list of attacks: [9]

Date of attackAttack descriptionReference
19 April 1998Fatah militants kill an American-Israeli farmer on the Ma’on farm near Hebron.
14 January 2001Fatah and Hamas claim responsibility for the murder of an Israeli whose body was found in agricultural hothouses in the Gaza Strip.
17 January 2001Three Fatah Tanzim gunmen murder a 16-year-old Israeli
25 January 2001Fatah Tanzim militants kill an Israeli in Atarot
1 February 2001Fatah Tanzim militants shoot and kill an Israeli driver
11 February 2001Fatah Tanzim militants shoot and kill another Israeli driver
26 March 2001 A 10-month-old Israeli baby is shot during a sniper attack from Fatah Tanzim
15 May 2001Three Israelis are shot and killed by Fatah Tanzim militants while driving on the Alon highway
18 May 2001Fatah Tanzim shoot and kill an Israeli and his mother on a road north of Jerusalem
23 May 2001Fatah Tanzim shoot and kill an Israeli motorist outside Ariel
25 May 2001The burned buried body of an Israeli killed by Fatah is discovered
31 May 2001Fatah Tanzim insurgents shoot and kill an Israeli north of Tulkarem
12 June 2001Fatah Tanzim militants/insurgents kill Georgios Tsibouktzakis
18 June 2001A Fatah assassin kills an Israeli motorist by gunfire near Tulkarem
20 June 2001A Fatah Tanzim insurgent kills an Israeli with gunfire who had gone to visit a Palestinian business partner in Silat a-Dahar
12 July 2001Four Fatah Tanzim militants shoot and kill an Israeli driver outside Kiryat Arba
13 July 2001Fatah Tanzim insurgents kill an official investigating the site of a deadly shooting the previous day
26 July 2001Fatah Tanzim aligned-militants shoot and kill an Israeli driver near Givat Ze’ev
12 December 2001Fatah and Hamas claim responsibility for an attack on an Israeli bus that kill 11
15 January 2002Fatah Tanzim-aligned inurgents shoot and kill a 45-year-old Israeli woman at a gas station near Givat Ze’ev
16 January 2002Fatah Tanzim-affiliated militants shoot and kill an Arab resident of Beit Hanina, having mistaken her for a Jewish Israeli
27 January 2002A female Fatah militant kills one and wounds 150 people in a suicide bomb attack in Jerusalem
6 February 2002Fatah and Hamas claim responsibility for the killing of an 11-year-old daughter and her mother in Moshav Hamra
9 February 2002Fatah Tanzim militants shoot and kill an Israeli female driver and injure her son
27 February 2002Two Fatah-affiliated/aligned groups claim responsibility for a shooting attack conducted by a Palestinian worker against his employer in Atarot
11 May 2003Fatah and PFLP claim responsibility for a shooting attack that kills an Israeli motorist near Ofra
17 April 2004Fatah and Hamas claim responsibility for a suicide attack in the Erez crossing that kills one and injures three border guards
2 May 2004Fatah and Islamic Jihad claim joint responsibility for an gunfire attack that kills four women and their mother while they were out on car drive
12 August 2004A Fatah Tanzim militant killed six Israeli border guards, two Palestinian civilians, and injures 12 Palestinians by detonating a suicide bomb in Kalandiyah.
24 June 2005Fatah and Islamic Jihad militants and insurgents shoot and kill two Israelis near Hebron

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Palestinian Organizations". Arab Gateway. Archived from the original on 30 September 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
  2. 1 2 PD-icon.svg This article incorporates public domain material from Palestinian Factions (PDF). Congressional Research Service.
  3. ↑ "Want Security? End the Occupation". 26 September 2003.
  4. 1 2 Philps, Alan (10 November 2000). "Israeli rocket kills Fatah militant". The Telegraph . Retrieved 7 December 2023.
  5. ↑ Richburg, Keith (10 November 2000). "Israelis Kill Arab Militia Official". Washington Post . Retrieved 7 December 2023.
  6. ↑ Goldenberg, Suzanne (14 January 2001). "Public death for 'collaborators'". The Guardian . Retrieved 7 December 2023.
  7. 1 2 "Israel arrests head of Fatah-aligned terror group". The Times of Israel . The Times of Israel Ltd. 15 February 2016. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
  8. ↑ Gross, Judah (15 February 2016). "Israel arrests head of Fatah armed wing". The Times of Israel . The Times of Israel Ltd. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
  9. ↑ Barry Rubin, Judith Colp Rubin (28 January 2015). Chronologies of Modern Terrorism. Routledge.
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