Suffocated by Israeli occupation, a new generation of Palestinian militants takes up the fight

Amid the labyrinth of covered markets and ancient stone streets in Nablus's Old City, music blasts from a barber shop.

The tune takes the melody of an old Palestinian folk song and adapts it for much darker times. The lyrics glorify the deaths of those resisting Israeli occupation, including "Wadee the Lion," who, as the words go, lived with "his hand on the trigger."

"Wadee" is Wadee al-Houh, one of the former leaders of an emerging group of young Palestinian militants called "the Lions' Den."

Al-Houh was 31 years old when he and four other members of the Lions' Den militia were killed during an Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) raid on his home in October 2022. The apartment where the attack occurred is just across the narrow alleyway from the West Bank barber shop.

Thirty-year-old Mohammed, who is in the chair getting a beard trim, says al-Houh's death made him a revered figure in Nablus and beyond. He also says the Lions' Den, which al-Houh co-founded, has rapidly grown in strength and popularity.

"Here, people support the Lions' Den, not the Palestinian Authority," Mohammed told CBC News. "And its popularity is so huge that people of all generations support them."

In the space of less than a year, Lions' Den has become one of the most prominent new militant groups that have changed the nature and intensity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel has blamed the group's violent ways — which the IDF says includes multiple killings, ambushes and improvised explosive attacks on its forces — for a huge spike in civilian and military casualties on both sides over the past year.

While Israeli soldiers are the group's main target, militias like the Lion's Den also pose a serious political challenge to the legitimacy of the Palestinian leadership.   

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is now 87 years old, and his decades-long calls for a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has less and less resonance with a frustrated new generation.

Palestinian areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have traditionally been dominated by several large Palestinian factions — groups such as Fatah, which dominates the West Bank, and Hamas, which controls Gaza. 

What distinguishes the Lions' Den and other new, independent militias is that they shun traditional sectarian labels.

"They're with us during our funerals. They're with us during our weddings. They are there for us all the time," said Mohammed, the barber shop customer, underscoring the group's ability to appeal to a notoriously divided populace.