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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Palestinians prepare for post-Abbas power struggle

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BALATA CAMP: In Palestinian refugee camps in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, some residents are preparing weapons for a potential power struggle when president Mahmud Abbas finally leaves the stage.


Abbas, 85, leader of the Fatah movement and of the Palestinian Authority (PA), has promised legislative and presidential elections in 2021, for the first time in almost 15 years.


Rivals are already seeking to build up a power-base.


In Balata camp, outside the city of Nablus, walls are plastered with posters picturing Hatem Abu Rizq, regarded as a “martyr” of Palestinian infighting.


On October 31, Palestinian media reported one dead and others wounded in Balata, where 30,000 people are crammed into one quarter of a square kilometre.


This time, the casualties were not the result of a clash with Israeli forces, although Abu Rizq spent almost 10 years in Israeli jails for his part in the Palestinian uprising of 2000 to 2005.


At the age of 35, he died in the eruption of intra-Palestinian violence in October.


Palestinian officials said he was killed by the premature explosion of a bomb he was about to detonate.


“But in truth he was killed by shots,” says his mother, Um Hatem Abu Rizq, in the family’s tiny apartment in a dilapidated concrete building.


“He was looking to fight corruption, that’s why they didn’t like him,” she weeps, kissing a giant poster of her son.


Was he working for exiled former Fatah Gaza security chief Mohammed Dahlan, as alleged by PA officials?


“If Hatem were with Dahlan, we would not live in such an apartment,” said his mother, whose two other sons are in hiding, fearing for their lives.


In the Palestinian territories, Dahlan’s name comes up repeatedly in connection with the normalisation agreements between Israel and the Arab countries.


His name has been mentioned as a possible contender for a “successor” to the 85-year-old Abbas, who has headed the Palestinian Authority since 2005 after the 2004 death of Yasser Arafat.


The PA’s governor of Nablus, Ibrahim Ramadan, has no doubt about Abu Rizq’s loyalties.


“Hatem Abu Rizq was with Dahlan,” he said, adding that since his death, 14 members of the government security forces have been wounded in attacks in Balata.


“These people only understand the language of force and need to understand that we are strong,” he said.


The United Nations envoy for the Middle East, Nickolay Mladenov, said he was “deeply concerned” about growing tensions between residents of Balata camp and the Palestinian security forces, and called for “all parties to show restraint”.


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


“In Balata, it is not that people like Dahlan, but they are looking for an alternative to improve their lot... it is fertile ground.”


He said the dispute has sparked an influx of weapons into the camp outpacing that of the uprising, or intifada, of 20 years ago. — AFP


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