The Palestinian Authority (PA) launched an operation against the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank on Monday. PA security forces—with apparent blessings from Israel—exchanged gunfire with terrorist organizations. These include the operation center of the Jenin Brigades and the al-Hura Club, a reported terrorist haunt. The PA claims almost half of the camp is now under government control.

The immediate catalyst was terrorist operatives seizing two PA security vehicles last week. The PA claims its forces will “press forward decisively until the operation’s objectives are achieved.” Interior Minister Ziad Hab al-Reeh claimed the end goals are “to impose order and the rule of law, put an end to security chaos, confront outlaws, and restore safety.” President Mahmoud Abbas said anybody in the security forces who refuses to participate would be fired.

One may wonder what’s the big deal with warring over a refugee camp. But in the West Bank, refugee camps are much more than humanitarian services. Established after the 1948 Israeli War of Independence to house fleeing Arabs, they have mushroomed into lawless hotbeds for terrorism. The PA hasn’t controlled the Jenin refugee camp since 2022. Instead, terrorist organizations like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have dominated the camps since before the PA lost control. These camps have become nerve centers for terrorist attacks against Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Jenin is especially notorious; the Israeli government nicknamed it the “hornet’s nest.”

When Israel allowed the PA to form in 1994, the PA agreed to conduct counterterrorism operations in the area it controls. This would have shown Israel the fledgling Palestinian government was serious in helping Israel tackle security threats. Yet the PA has failed to do that. It has let areas like Jenin turn into festering centers of terrorist activity. It sends money to terrorists in Israeli jails and their families. Fatah, the faction that controls the PA, participated in last year’s October 7 massacre.

The Jenin siege is more than the PA finally doing its job. Any change in Jenin’s status quo makes the West Bank’s “wild west” a little less wild. At the very least, it means its terrorist groups are too distracted fighting the PA to focus on fighting Israel.

Hamas, on its last legs in Gaza, is not in any state to wage a successful war in the West Bank. But Jenin has been a lawless terrorist zone for years. Why did the PA wait until now to attempt recapturing it?

The most important relationship for both Israel and the PA is the United States. If the U.S. cut off military aid to Israel, as it has under Joe Biden, Israel would be vulnerable to attack. Likewise, if the U.S. cut off aid to the PA, it could dissolve as an entity. Since the October 7 war began, the U.S. has been marginalizing Israel, withholding weapons shipments, and pressuring it to engage in talks with the Palestinians.

Donald Trump will be replacing Joe Biden in January. During his first term, Trump earned a reputation as the most pro-Israel president in U.S. history. He recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights. He negotiated several normalization agreements with Arab states bypassing the Palestinian cause.

He has promised even more to Israel once he resumes office and has threatened serious consequences if Hamas doesn’t release its American hostages. In a Time interview, he even suggested pushing for a peace process that doesn’t create a Palestinian state.

For years the PA has looked weak and ineffective, at best—corrupt and dangerous, at worst. Abbas probably suspects Trump will marginalize his regime or even let it disintegrate if he doesn’t do some massive cleanup operation. If this is the case, it is still remarkable Abbas would take this kind of action even before Trump takes power.

The Trumpet has forecast that a second Trump administration will dramatically help Israel’s security situation. 2 Kings 14:26-28 prophesies that the descendants of ancient Israel—not limited to the State of Israel today—would face a crisis so massive God must intervene to prevent the name of Israel from being blotted out. The passage prophesies that God would send a man, King Jeroboam ii, to save Israel. Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has identified Jeroboam’s prophetic parallel as Donald Trump. (Request his free book America Under Attack.)

Verse 28 has an interesting detail: “Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, and all that he did, and his might, how he warred, and how he recovered Damascus, and Hamath, which belonged to Judah, for Israel, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?”

“Judah” is the tribe of Israel that became the modern Jews—the people in the State of Israel. Mr. Flurry writes in America Under Attack that “the indication is that Jeroboam reclaimed something to help Judah.”

“From the time of Joe Biden’s inauguration,” he continues, “I predicted that we would have more Palestinian terrorist attacks because of the change in leadership. That is exactly what began to happen. Anybody should be able to recognize why! … It appears Mr. Trump may have to recover some of Judah’s freedom ….”

Abbas’s changing security policy may be a sign this is about to happen. As Mr. Flurry elaborates, this resurgence will only be temporary, unless the nation learns some hard lessons. But at least in the short term, this is good news for the State of Israel. And it will ultimately lead to peace for Israel that will never end.

To learn more, request a free copy of America Under Attack.