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World News
Reuters staff
RAMALLAH, West Bank / GAZA (Reuters) – Palestinian security forces arrested more than half a dozen supporters of an exiled Palestinian politician who some have accused of being involved in the United Arab Emirates deal to forge ties with Israel, he said. a spokesman for his faction.
Mohammed Dahlan has lived in the United Arab Emirates since he was expelled from the Israeli-occupied West Bank in 2011 after a bitter dispute with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his political party Fatah, of which Dahlan is a member.
The Gulf Arab country’s agreement to establish diplomatic relations with Israel has angered Palestinians and sparked widespread speculation that Dahlan played a role.
The Dahlan faction has criticized Arab countries that establish relations with Israel before their conflict with the Palestinians is resolved, although it has not flatly denied its involvement.
On Monday, seven members of the Dahlan faction were arrested by the security forces of Abbas’s Palestinian Authority (PA), which has limited self-government in the West Bank, according to Dahlan’s faction spokesman Imad Mohsen, who called the arrests as “for political reasons”.
The arrests were carried out in the West Bank and included Haytham al-Halabi and Salim Abu Safia, both high-ranking members of the Dahlan faction, a statement from the group said.
In a statement, Palestinian security forces said they had detained Halabi from a village near the West Bank city of Nablus as part of “a continuation of efforts to impose security and order.”
The statement did not mention any other arrests.
The Palestinian Authority’s Interior Ministry declined to comment.
Dahlan, a former Gaza security chief, has long presented himself as a possible successor to Abbas. He has cultivated close ties with UAE leaders since his exile.
The United Arab Emirates and the Persian Gulf state Bahrain signed normalization agreements with Israel at the White House last week in a ceremony hosted by US President Donald Trump.
The accords were the first such agreements between Arab countries and Israel in more than 20 years, and were forged in part thanks to shared fears of Iran.
The Palestinians have called the measures a treason, fearing they will weaken a long-standing pan-Arab position that demands Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory and acceptance of a Palestinian state in exchange for normal relations with Israel.
