Fatah vows not to let Hamas ‘replicate its actions’ in West Bank, slams Iran

PA President Abbas says terror group ‘sacrificed the interests of the Palestinian people for Iran,’ caused destruction of Gaza, as Ramallah cracks down on West Bank operatives

Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief

Palestinians hold yellow Fatah movement flags as they demonstrate in support of the Palestinian security forces in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, December 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Palestinians hold yellow Fatah movement flags as they demonstrate in support of the Palestinian security forces in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, December 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party issued a rare statement on Saturday vowing not to “allow Hamas, which sacrificed the interests of the Palestinian people for Iran and caused destruction in the Gaza Strip, to replicate its actions in the West Bank.”

The statement came as Fatah seeks to rally public opinion in support of its ongoing security operation in the Jenin refugee camp targeting Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other armed terror groups that have gradually gained prominence in the northern West Bank.

The statement notably called out not just Hamas — which attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, starting an ongoing multifront war with Iranian-backed forces — but also Tehran itself, which Fatah accused of bankrolling the various armed groups throughout the West Bank, particularly the so-called Jenin Brigade.

Fatah tore into Hamas’s decision to launch the October 7 onslaught, when thousands of terrorists invaded southern Israel from Gaza, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.

Abbas’s party said the decision to launch the attack has led to the death or injury of over 200,000 Palestinians and “catastrophic conditions” in the Gaza Strip, amid the subsequent war.

Gaza has been under the authority of Hamas since the terror group seized the territory in a bloody 2007 coup from the PA, which currently rules over parts of the West Bank and is based in Ramallah. Repeated attempts at mending the rift between Fatah and Hamas have failed, wrecked by the factions’ bitter rivalry over power.

Palestinians struggle to reach for food at a distribution center in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, January 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

“Hamas is now attempting to stir security chaos in the West Bank, thereby continuing its policy that brought disaster upon the Palestinian people,” Fatah said on Saturday, appearing to again reject Hamas’s strategy of armed conflict with Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has not offered a clear plan for who will govern Gaza after the fighting stops, and far-right elements of his coalition have pushed for maintaining Israeli control, as well as the reestablishment of settlements in the enclave.

Others, however, maintain there is little alternative to involving the PA in a post-Hamas government, and Ramallah’s ongoing crackdown against terror groups in the West Bank is widely seen as an effort to demonstrate its capacity to govern in the coastal enclave as well.

In December, Egypt hosted talks between Fatah and Hamas, in which negotiators reportedly agreed on a plan to create a nonpartisan committee to administer Gaza, though it is not clear whether that preliminary agreement, which was pending Abbas’s approval, has led anywhere.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

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