Eurasia Press & News
The Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) is a loose coalition of armed Palestinian terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank that oppose Israel’s right to exist and the leadership of the Palestinian Authority. Since its founding in 2000, the PRC has carried out numerous attacks against Israelis and Americans with support from the Islamic Republic of Iran. Members of the PRC joined Hamas in attacking from Gaza into southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Despite its track record, the PRC is currently not a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization.
- The PRC is the third-largest terrorist group in Gaza.
The PRC with its military wing, the Al-Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades, has grown into the third-largest terrorist organization in Gaza behind Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), respectively. The group also has an active presence in the West Bank. In 2000, the group emerged as a radical offshoot of Fatah, the largest faction under the multi-party Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) umbrella, but quicky became independent. The U.S. State Department acknowledged as early as 2005 that the PRC “carried out a significant number of terrorist attacks from the Rafah area” in southern Gaza.
- The PRC has repeatedly attacked and killed Americans and Israelis.
Since its founding, the PRC has claimed responsibility for more than 100 attacks against Israelis and Americans, including several attacks executed in coordination with U.S.-designated terrorist organizations such as Hamas, PIJ, and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. On October 16, 2003, the PRC planted a roadside bomb that struck a U.S. diplomatic vehicle in Beit Lahiya, Gaza, killing three Americans. The PRC — along with operatives from Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades and the Palestinian terrorist group Jaysh al-Islam — also played a role in the June 2006 kidnapping of Israeli Staff Sergeant Gilad Shalit. During the 2014 and 2021 Gaza wars, the PRC launched rockets at Israeli cities resulting in multiple civilian fatalities.
- The PRC participated in Hamas’s October 7 terror attack.
The PRC touted its participation in Hamas’s October 7 attack on social media, claiming that it successfully launched kamikaze drones against Israel during the assault and kidnapped Israeli soldiers. The group also shared images on its official Telegram channel showing Israeli military equipment and personal items that the PRC said belonged to its hostages.
- Iran and its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas provide the PRC with military support.
The PRC has repeatedly and publicly thanked the Islamic Republic of Iran for providing military support and training. In 2016, PRC spokesman Jamal Abu Samhadna Abu Atayya said that Tehran provided “advice and guidance” to the group. In 2021, he thanked Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for providing “every missile, shell, or any tool of the Resistance.” Iran-backed Hezbollah also supports the PRC; following the May 2021 Gaza war, Abu Atayya claimed that the PRC “developed and excelled during the previous battles, thanks first to God Almighty, and then thanks to the support of the Lebanese Hezbollah for us.” Moreover, PRC officials have openly admitted that Hamas allows them to operate freely inside Gaza. “What I can say is that the [Hamas] government in Gaza didn’t prevent us from doing a thing with regard to our resistance activity,” PRC spokesman Abu Mujahid said in 2012.
- The PRC is not a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization.
The U.S. State Department designated both Hamas and PIJ as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) in 1997, but the PRC, to date, remains undesignated. In April 2024, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation to designate and sanction the PRC. “Hamas was not the only terrorist group guilty of atrocities,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) explained. “This bill updates our sanctions to cover all of the terrorist groups operating in the West Bank and Gaza.” Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) said that Washington must hold the PRC “accountable for decades of cowardly attacks” and “apply the full force of U.S. sanctions to cut off the PRC from the global financial system.”
