Zakaria Zubeidi, chief of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Jenin

Zakaria Zubeidi, chief of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Jenin, recently granted an interview in which he publicly admitted, in an uncharacteristic fashion, that his organization receives operative assistance from Hezbollah and that Iran exerts much influence on him (referring to his organization).

In the interview, published in the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag (March 6) and cited in the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai al-Amm (March 6), Zakaria Zubeidi noted that Hezbollah assisted his organization with funds, arms, and military training. “Without the assistance of our Hezbollah brothers,” said Zubeidi, “we would not have been able to persist with our struggle…”; “they [Hezbollah] give us funds, arms, training, and support.” Zubeidi added, “We coordinate our operations with them [i.e., with Hezbollah].”

Zakaria Muhammad Abd al-Rahman Zubeidi is a senior operative of Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, heading the organization’s operative-terrorist wing in the Jenin area. Since the summer of 2002, he has been involved in many acts of terrorism in which Israelis were killed and injured. In recent years, he has been involved in planning terrorist attacks in Samaria and in Israel proper, some in cooperation with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad infrastructure. Zubeidi frequently grants interviews to the media, including Israeli and foreign media.

His statement on the assistance his organization receives from Hezbollah is unusual, since the terrorist organizations’ operatives, including Zakaria Zubeidi, usually tend to downplay this assistance. In Zubeidi’s previous statements with regard to this matter (August 2004), when asked to comment on words said about Hezbollah’s assistance, he preferred to use a much vaguer, more general style, saying: “This rumor is incorrect, but let us assume for argument’s sake that the [Al-Aqsa Martyrs] Brigades did receive Hezbollah’s support, what harm does it do? Hezbollah is an Arab movement. It didn’t fall on us from the moon. It is not Israeli or Jewish.” When asked once again: “But a commander of the [Al-Aqsa Martyrs] Brigades in Nablus [referring to an operative known as Abu Mujahed] said this week that you receive financial assistance from Hezbollah?” Zubeidi replied: “We expect every Arab side to support the Palestinian people” (Arab.48.com, August 4, 2004).¹

Zubeidi’s statement that his organization could not continue the struggle without Hezbollah’s operative assistance indeed reflects the great need of Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades operatives for Hezbollah’s assistance. During the current conflict, Hezbollah (and Iran, supporting it) emerges as a central factor directing and funding the activities of the various branches of Fatah, mainly in Samaria. It should also be noted that during the lull in the fighting, Hezbollah continued to direct the Fatah cells in the West Bank, extensively resorting to financial incentives to encourage terrorist activity.

It should be mentioned that Fatah terrorist operatives, previously detained by the Israeli security forces, admitted under interrogation that their terrorist activity was directed by Hezbollah. Thus, for example:

On February 12, 2004, the security forces arrested Ra’ad Mansour and his son, Dia Mansour, two senior Fatah Tanzim operatives from Nablus. The two related that they had held contact with Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon.

In June 2005, the security forces arrested a Fatah Tanzim cell from the Balata and Askar refugee camps in Nablus. The cell was in final stages of preparing a suicide bombing attack in Israeli territory. To perpetrate the terrorist attacks, the cell recruited several 15 and 16-year-old teenagers. Some of the detained operatives were directed by the Hezbollah organization in Lebanon.

On October 16, 2005, the Israeli security forces arrested Majdi Kamal Abd al-Jabbar Amer from the village of Qalil, in the Nablus region. In his questioning, he related that he had been handled by the Hezbollah organization in Lebanon. It was done through a kind of front headquarters in Gaza, serving as a link between Hezbollah handlers in Lebanon and terrorist operatives in the West Bank, through which funds and instructions are transferred to Fatah Tanzim operatives.

1.See within this context an Information Bulletin published by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center: “Iranian money and Hezbollah are behind terrorism in the Palestinian Authority-administered territories: high-ranking Fatah/Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades members and Arafat himself publicly announce the receipt of funds from Iran and Hezbollah. In the meantime, in Nablus, another group of Fatah/Tanzim terrorists directed by Hezbollah to perpetrate suicide bombing attacks was exposed” (August 2004).