In Palestinian refugee camps on the West Bank, some residents are preparing weapons for a possible power struggle when President Mahmoud Abbas leaves the last platform.
Abbas, 85, the leader of the strongest Fatah movement and the Palestinian Authority (PA), has promised legislative and primary elections in 2021, for the first time in nearly 15 years.
Palestinian Authority security forces in balaclavas stand with an armed vehicle at the mouth of the Balata camp, near the West Bank city of Nablus
(Photo: AFP)
Competitors are already trying to build a power plant.
In the Balata camp, outside the city of Nablus, walls are plastered with posters depicting Hatem Abu Rizq, considered a “priest” of Palestinian invasion.
On October 31, Palestinian media reported that one person was killed and others injured in Balata, where 30,000 people are trapped in a quarter of a square kilometer (one tenth of a square mile).
This time, the casualties were not the result of a conflict with Israeli forces, although Abu Rizq spent nearly 10 years in Israeli prisons for his part in the 2000- 2005 Palestinian uprising.
At the age of 35, he died in a violent explosion within Palestine in October.
Palestinian officials said he was killed by the premature explosion of a bomb he planned to detonate.
Um Hatem Abu Rizq lost one son to violence inside Palestine in a Balata refugee camp in October and her other two have gone into hiding in fear for their lives
(Photo: AFP)
“But in reality he was killed by pictures from the Palestinian Authority,” said his mother, Um Hatem Abu Rizq, in the family ‘s tiny flat in a broken concrete building.
“He was looking to fight corruption within the Palestinian administration, which is why they didn’t like it,” she laments, kissing a large poster of her son.
Was Mohammed Dahlan ‘s deported deputy security chief for Fatah Gaza, as PA officials said?
“If Hatem were with Dahlan, we would not be living in such an apartment,” said his mother, who has two other sons in hiding, fearing for their lives.
In the Palestinian territories, Dahlan’s name is repeated in connection with the normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, announced in August and signed in Washington in September. .
He collapsed in disgrace in Fatah after his security forces in Gaza were ousted by Hamas in 2007.
Four years later, he was kicked off by Fatah’s main committee on “subversion” charges.
Palestinian President Abbas and Mohammed Dahlan
(Photo: EPA)
He went into exile in Abu Dhabi where he was an adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed and a key player in the Israeli-led crackdown on the PA.
Following the announcement of the UAE’s agreement with the Jewish state, Palestinians in the West Bank opposed posters of “spy” Dahlan.
But his name has been named as a potential contender for the 85-year-old Abbas, who has been head of the Palestinian Authority since 2005 following the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004.
Within the Palestinian political establishment, however, the future after Abbas is a taboo subject.
A Palestinian woman stands against a wall plastered with posters depicting ‘martyrs’, at a market in the Balata camp, near the West Bank city of Nablus
(Photo: AFP)
“In this region, we don’t want to talk about life after death,” Fatah’s influential figure said recently.
PA governor of Nablus Ibrahim Ramadan has no doubts about Abu Rizq ‘s loyalty.
“Hatem Abu Rizq was with Dahlan,” he told AFP, adding that since his assassination, 14 members of government security forces have been injured in attacks in Balata.
“These people just understand the language of a force and they need to understand that we are strong,” he said.
At the entrance to the Balata camp, Palestinian security guards in balaclavas stand by an armed vehicle, sipping coffee, while their sniper colleagues patrol from the tops.
“Dahlan will give money to unemployed youths to throw stones and Molotov cocktails at Palestinian forces,” PA chief executive General Wael Shitawi said angrily.
“Their aim is to create unrest and show that the Palestinian Authority is not in control of the camps,” he told AFP in his apartment surrounded by surveillance cameras.
A building that caught fire during a fighting camp in Balata, near the West Bank city of Nablus
(Photo: AFP)
“They want to start a revolution from the camps, then say Dahlan needs to come back to solve the problem.”
Dahlan’s sympathizers and Fatah member Dimitri Diliani say the PA sees Dahlan’s hand in what is just the anger of the refugees who feel helpless and inattentive.
“This is Dahlanphobia, a phobia that the PA suffers from,” he said. “This is a more serious pandemic than Covid – 19.
“It is a response to political harassment by the Palestinian Authority,” he said.
United Nations Ambassador to the Middle East Nickolay Mladenov told AFP he was “deeply concerned” about growing tensions between Balata camp residents and Palestinian security forces, and called on him. all parties to block access ”.
Emad Zaki, who heads a committee that oversees services for camp residents, said people wanted change.
Daily life in the Balata camp near Nablus takes place under the careful leadership of Palestinian security forces
(Photo: AFP)
“In Balata, it’s not that people like Dahlan, but they’re looking for an alternative to improve the lottery … it’s fertile ground.”
He said the military controversy prompted intrusion into the camp over the uprising, or intifada, 20 years ago.
“There are more weapons today in Balata than there were in the second intifada,” he said. “There are rocket surgeries, Kalashnikovs and M-16 (assault rifles)”.