Gunfights in central Nablus, with young Palestinians fighting police and setting fires that paralyze the city, signal growing chaos in the northern West Bank that could spiral out of control.

The transformation of the city center into a combat zone happened without much warning. On Saturday, shoppers shot peacefully through the bustling downtown markets.

But early Tuesday, Palestinian Authority security forces conducted a rare operation to arrest a prominent member of the Islamist group Hamas, Moussab Shtayyeh, infuriating many in Nablus who accused the PA of being Israeli pawns and the occupation of the West Bank to tacitly accept.

Shortly after the arrest, the center of Nablus was a restricted zone. Youths threw rocks at armored PA trucks and set fires in the streets while gunfire rang through the city.

AFP spoke to several people in Nablus, most of whom asked not to be identified for fear of retribution if they criticized the PA and its 87-year-old President Mahmoud Abbas, whose popularity in the West Bank has fallen to historic lows.

“There is tension over the arrest of Moussab Shtayyeh by the Palestinian forces and we are attacking them for coordinating with the occupying Israeli forces,” said Hamza, a young man in his 20s.

A young Palestinian journalist, who declined to be named, said “deeper” factors besides Shtayyeh’s arrest fueled Tuesday’s violence.

He said the young people fighting the PA are not affiliated with the Islamist groups Hamas or Islamic Jihad, nor are they disaffected members of Abbas’s secular Fatah movement.

“They are young Palestinians, part of a new generation uncontrolled and angry at Israel and the Palestinian Authority.”

The northern West Bank has seen unrest on an almost daily basis in recent months, but typically Israeli troops and Palestinian fighters have been involved.

Israel has conducted hundreds of raids in the region since March, pursuing militants it accuses of involvement in a string of deadly attacks on Israelis.

Dozens of Palestinians, mostly militants, have been killed in Israeli raids that have hit several cities, including Nablus and particularly nearby Jenin, a historic militant stronghold.

Among those killed was an 18-year-old fighter named Ibrahim al-Nabulsi, who has become a folk hero on social media since his death in August and is nicknamed the “Lion of Nablus”.

An image of him — with his square chin, black beard, assault rifle in hand — graces tags sold in Nablus’ markets, and his likeness is stuck to the windshields of motor scooters whizzing through the city.

His mother Huda, whose head was wrapped in a pure white shawl surrounded by images of her late son, said: “When he was younger, Ibrahim was gentle.”

“He loved design,” she said. “But the injustice that surrounded him brought him to the other side.”

His father, Alaa, said the relentless Israeli raids on their communities had left young Palestinians feeling abandoned by the PA.

“The young generation is not crazy, but they grew up under occupation, all they know is raids and injustice, and that made them deeply angry,” he said.

“The increase in Israeli raids in Jenin and Nablus is weakening the Palestinian Authority and creating further distance between the PA and the people,” he told AFP, avoiding direct criticism of the Palestinian president.

It was not immediately clear why the PA tried to arrest Shtayyeh and Amid Tbaileh, another Hamas member detained with him.

But Israel regularly urges the PA to take more decisive action in areas of the West Bank it nominally controls, especially in cities like Nablus.

Last week, after two Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were killed in clashes near Jenin, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said he would “not hesitate to act anywhere the Palestinian Authority fails to establish order.”

In the Israeli newspaper Maariv, leading security commentator Alon Ben David said the spate of army attacks had “further undermined the Palestinian Authority’s challenged status,” with conditions ripe for a new intifada or insurgency like those of 1987-91 to 2000 2005

“Israeli officials have talked for years about the need to prepare for the day after Abu Mazen (Abbas) … but practically, that day is already here,” he said, arguing that the president’s authority is minimal and succession battles are already occurring Brew.

The mixture of intra-Palestinian violence and anti-Israeli resentment “is likely to morph into a new Palestinian intifada that is growing before our eyes, Intifada 3.0,” he said.