At the start of the week, a member of Iz al-Din al-Qassam, the military wing of Hamas, died in the Palestinian Authority's Juneid Prison, in Nablus. The circumstances of Fadi Hamadneh's death are unclear, with PA officials claiming he committed suicide, and Hamas claiming he was tortured to death by PA security operatives. In response to the charges, the spokesman of the Palestinian security services, Adnan Damiri, said that Hamas, which has executed hundreds of people in the Gaza Strip, has no right to talk about torture or the violation of human rights.
Hamas tried to stir up a major media response to Hamadneh's death but the organization could not steal the thunder from the Fatah convention in Bethlehem. The Islamic organization that rules in Gaza cannot draw encouragement from the developments surrounding the Fatah gathering. It failed in its attempt to keep Fatah delegates in the Strip from voting, and Fatah's status on the Palestinian street is only expected to rise.
The secular-nationalist Fatah movement pulled off a 2,260-delegate convention, including elections that changed its leadership, with only limited hiccups. The newly elected members of the Fatah Central Committee - who include Mohammed Dahlan, Hussein al-Sheikh, Tawfik Tirawi, Saeb Erekat and Nabil Sha'ath - share a firm approach toward Hamas. Perhaps the only one of their number who has repeatedly called for rapprochement with Hamas is Jibril Rajoub, whose brother Naif is a leading member of Hamas detained in Israel.
The gulf between the two organizations is only widening. One candidate for the Fatah Revolutionary Council, Ziad Abu Ayin, did not hesitate to voice threats against Hamas. "We will not negotiate endlessly with Hamas," he told Haaretz on Tuesday. "Hamas has turned 1.5 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip into hostages. The Fatah leadership must decide how to free these hostages, whether through negotiations or combat. Yes, combat. But everyone must accept this decision, they cannot be allowed to continue to control the lives of the Gazans. Hamas defeated Fatah in the elections because of the chaos within Fatah. But now, after Fatah has unified its ranks, it's a new Fatah. The old Fatah is gone and Hamas is about to be defeated," Abu Ayin said.
On voting day, the plaza of Terra Sancta College was filled with campaign materials of Central Committee and Revolutionary Council candidates, and activists whispered into delegates' ears, "My brother, vote for ..." Slates of recommended candidates were displayed. More than 100 people competed for 18 seats on the Central Committee, while some 600 campaigned for 80 Revolutionary Council places.
A flyer for Rawhi Fattouh read: "Vote for Central Committee candidate Rawhi Ahmed Fattouh, former PA chairman and former chairman of the Palestinian Legislative Council." Fattouh was de jure PA chairman for two months, between the death of Yasser Arafat and the election of Mahmoud Abbas, but is better known as the senior Fatah official in whose car 600 stolen cell phones were found when he was crossing the Allenby Bridge. He was acquitted by the court, but not by the Fatah delegates. Fattouh remained outside the Central Committee.
Outside the college, supporters of Marwan Barghouti, a Fatah leader serving several life terms in an Israeli prison for masterminding terror attacks against Israeli civilians, distributed T-shirts featuring the black-and-white image of their candidate, his handcuffed wrists raised, and the words "Hadarim Prison, cell 28." The label inside the shirt featuring the image of the leader of the Tanzim bears the name of an Israeli company from Petah Tikva, unaware that shirts it had manufactured ended up in Ramallah. Barghouti, the famous warrior against the Israeli occupation reached only third place, although many analysts had expected him to come in first. This time he can't complain that the "Israeli occupation" damaged his election campaign.
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