NABLUS, West Bank—For young Palestinians in the Balata refugee camp, sleep begins after dawn. Rising in the afternoon, they wolf down a meal, grab their rifles and disperse to hide-outs down narrow alleys to wait for the arrival of Israeli troops. After sunset, the gunfights begin.
It is a routine that both Israeli military forces and the Palestinian Authority see as a growing danger—young, armed militants in the West Bank who have no affiliation with known groups such as Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Leaderless and angry, they have proved difficult for Israeli and Palestinian authorities to suppress, resulting in one of the bloodiest years in the West Bank in a decade and threatening to undermine the fragile Western-backed Palestinian rulers.
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