Palestinians gear up for post-Abbas power struggle in West Bank refugee camps

i24NEWS

December 20, 2020, 06:45 AMlatest revision December 20, 2020, 07:50 AM

Preparation of weapons caches is afoot in several Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank in the expectation of a power struggle when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas finally leaves the scene.

Abbas, 85, “leader of the dominant Fatah movement and of the Palestinian Authority (PA), has promised legislative and presidential elections in 2021, for the first time in 16 years,” according to The Times of Israel.

Likely rivals are already beginning to attempt to build up power bases so that they will be able to test their strength against each other when the time comes.

One of the key figures is exiled former Fatah Gaza security chief Mohammad Dahlan. In the wake of the Fatah security forces’ humiliating defeat at the hands of the Hamas terrorist group in the Gaza Strip in 2007, leading the way for the Islamist takeover of the enclave, Dahlan fell into disgrace and now resides in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

He became an adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed and is thought to be a key player in the UAE-Israel normalization deal – which the PA bitterly opposed – and which was signed in Washington in September.

However, overt talk of succession is apparently taboo, with one Fatah figure recently saying, “In this region, we don’t like to talk about life after death.”

The Balata refugee camp outside of Nablus (or Shechem as it is known in Hebrew) is a locus of pro-Dahlan, anti-PA sentiment.

Nicolay Mladenov, the Bulgarian United Nations envoy for the Middle East told AFP that he was “deeply concerned” about growing tensions between residents of Balata camp and the PA security forces, urging the usual maxim for “all parties to show restraint.”

Emad Zaki, who heads a committee that oversees services for camp residents, said that people were desperate for change.

He also maintained that there had been an influx of weapons into the camp, which far exceeded the amount of firepower available during the second intifada, 20 years ago.