The Palestinians' ruling Fatah Party has split, with young activists forming their own party for next month's parliamentary election, a party leader said.
The split is a bitter blow to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah old guard but a boost for the Islamic Hamas, contesting the election for the first time.
Kadoura Fares, a leader of the young activists, told reporters at the Ramallah election headquarters late on Wednesday that they had presented their own list of candidates for the election. But aides to Abbas said he still hoped to avert the split.
PHOTO: AFP
Ninety minutes before the midnight deadline for registering candidates, the wife of jailed uprising leader Marwan Barghouti entered election headquarters to formally present the new list, signaling that Barghouti, 46, and his young generation of Fatah leaders were leaving the party.
Saeb Nimr, Barghouti's campaign manager, told reporters, "We have registered an independent party under the name, `The Future,' headed by Marwan Barghouti."
Abbas' supporters submitted their own list, but aides said Abbas and Barghouti talked by telephone and pledged to try to avert the split.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser Al Kidwa said Barghouti also tops the oldtime Fatah list along with another prisoner, followed by three members of the old guard -- Intissar al-Wazir, widow of a Fatah fighter and often linked to corruption, Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and parliament speaker Rawhi Fattouh.
The political drama came after a day of violence in Gaza -- two Israeli air strikes at militants that killed four and wounded five others, including an Islamic Jihad spokesman.
On Wednesday afternoon, an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at a car near the Karni cargo crossing, killing four Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) militants. Israel said the missile set off explosives in the car as the militants were on their way to attack the Karni crossing, a vital lifeline for Palestinian imports and exports.
After nightfall, the Israelis fired another missile, targeting Islamic Jihad spokesman Khader Habib. Islamic Jihad official Omar Shallah said Habib was slightly injured.
Later, Israeli artillery pounded empty parts of northern Gaza after militants fired rockets at Israel, and aircraft fired two missiles at access roads, the military said. Two Palestinians were slightly wounded.
Early yesterday, an Israeli helicopter fired a missile at the house of a PRC leader in northern Gaza, residents said. A relative was wounded. The military said the target was a PRC weapons storehouse.
In southern Gaza early yesterday, an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at an Islamic Jihad office. No one was hurt.
Barghouti, serving five life terms in an Israeli prison for involvement in deadly attacks, has won West Bank primary elections conducted by Fatah, but oldtime Fatah leaders, headed by Abbas, tried to insert old guard figures in the list ahead of the younger leaders, setting off a rebellion.
Half an hour before the midnight deadline, oldtime Fatah officials came to present their list of candidates, but they said efforts were still underway to unify the party. Election officials said Barghouti himself would have to decide which party to represent, and adjustments could be made until Jan. 1.
Altogether, the officials said, more than 400 candidates signed up under 12 parties.
Half of the 132 members of parliament will be elected according to lists, with the candidates at the top of the lists entering the parliament in proportion to the number of votes their parties received. Higher places on the lists give a better chance of election -- meaning the insertion of oldtimers would push some of the younger leaders out of contention.
The other half of the parliament will be elected by districts.
Former West Bank security chief Jibril Rajoub and Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan joined Barghouti in his new party, Fatah leaders said, adding weight to the list. Dahlan, however, said the rebels are still loyal to Fatah -- indicating that their real goal is to take over the party.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema