Small shards of broken glass glinted in between paving stones in central Ramallah, one of the few physical signs of a clash the previous night between protesters and the security forces of the ruling Palestinian Authority.
Mohammed Tarifi sat with a friend on the corner of a deserted street that would normally throng with crowds stopping at its popular cafes, ice-cream vendors and juice shops. The two stared up at an enormous billboard for Sprite, a giant can of the soft drink rotating slowly in a sign of how Ramallah has grown in recent years and managed some limited prosperity as the economic and political centre of the West Bank.
“I wasn’t at the demonstration but I saw it on TikTok – Ramallah was a war zone,” Tarifi said. As protesters chanted to demand the fall of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, throwing rocks at police cars near Ramallah’s central Manara square, security forces replied with smoke bombs in an attempt to repel the crowds.
“I blame the Palestinian Authority. They should have just allowed the demonstration to happen rather than stopping it. We should support our people in Gaza, and I’m just so angry at what’s happened,” said the 20-year-old.
Protests have erupted across the West Bank in recent days. A 12-year-old girl was shot by authority security forces during protests in Jenin and a university student was injured by live fire in the town of Tubas.
“The roads are closed, and they’re all blocked anyway. Even if I want to leave Ramallah, there’s a good chance I’ll be shot,” said Tarifi, alluding to a widespread security crackdown by Israeli forces across the West Bank.
With a general strike in place across the West Bank few had ventured outside. Most of those who did said they were cautiously looking for ways to vent their anger at the Israeli authorities, who they accused of responsibility for a blast at a hospital in Gaza – which Israel has said was the result of a rocket fired by Palestinian militants that failed soon after launch – while pointing to what they said was a lacklustre response by the Palestinian Authority and particularly its longtime leader, Abbas.
The 88-year-old president – popularly known as Abu Mazen – has held office for almost two decades and has repeatedly declined to hold elections in territory administered by the authority amid the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. This has fuelled frustration that the president has long since lost touch with the mood among his people, strengthening the role played by armed groups.
Abbas’s critics increasingly accuse the ageing and withdrawn leader of failing in his duties and ceding too easily to the demands of the Israeli authorities while Palestinians have limited rights and control of their lives.
Leaning against the shutters of a local butcher shut for business, Mohammed Nasser described the mood across the West Bank as one of frustration. He and a group of friends who were joining in the strike were however reluctant to criticise Abbas or the authority in a town long considered its heartland, and where many have family or other connections to those working with the state.
“Our brothers work in the Palestinian Authority. We are a community. But people take their frustration out on what they see,” said Mohammed Abuleil.
Others like Tarifi said they felt Abbas had responded poorly to the crisis that followed Hamas’s murderous attack on 7 October that left more than 1,300 Israelis dead, but particularly the Israeli assault on Gaza that has now killed an estimated 3,500 people and wounded 12,000.
“Abu Mazen should stand up and support our people. He should support the people of Gaza,” Tarifi said. “He didn’t do that, but he should. It made him lose credibility – as people there is no one to listen to us.”
Abbas returned from Amman late on Tuesday night, shortly before he was due to participate in a summit with the US president, Joe Biden, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, and the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, from which he withdrew after the Gaza hospital blast. The day after, as images of bloodied civilians fuelled a tidal wave of anger among Palestinians and across the Middle East, Abbas said: “Israel has crossed all red lines.” He labelled the incident a “hideous war massacre”.
The president’s words seemed unlikely to win back his increasingly disgruntled populace. “He missed his opportunity, he’s lost credibility,” said Abu Khalid, a lawyer who had come out into an empty square named after the former leader and political firebrand Yasser Arafat to get a coffee at one of the few places that was willing to open, at least quietly.
As for whether anyone else may be able to step in, Khalid was doubtful. “People aren’t looking for a substitute to act as president – people just don’t want them at all,” he said, in reference to Abbas and his clique of advisers. “They don’t want to back a group that has given up our land. Since 1993 we have been negotiating with the Israelis and we are losing by the day.”
Nearby, Abu Rahma served some coffee and cautiously expressed his discontent. People just wanted to protest and express themselves, he said, but they felt “uprooted by the Palestinian Authority”, and frustrated by how its security forces were treating people.
“We are the people who have nothing – how can we fight two armies?” he said.
Sitting on the corner and getting ready to join protests, which increasingly included a pattern of small but violent skirmishes with Israeli security forces across the West Bank, Tarifi said Abbas was under pressure to act. If the president continues to do little in the face of Israeli action in Gaza, he said, “there will be a coup”.
Pointing to his friend who grinned to show a mouth full of braces, he said: “Hypothetically, even if he and I shut our mouths, the rest won’t.”
