Fatah Criticizes Iran... Why Now?

Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei receives Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and a delegation from the movement. (IRNA)
Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei receives Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and a delegation from the movement. (IRNA)
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Fatah Criticizes Iran... Why Now?

Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei receives Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and a delegation from the movement. (IRNA)
Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei receives Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and a delegation from the movement. (IRNA)

Scathing criticism by the Fatah movement, led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, against Iran has raised local and regional questions about its reasons and messages, especially since it coincided with the ongoing Israeli war against the Gaza Strip.

Fatah accused Iran of “instigating chaos and meddling in internal Palestinian affairs in a way that benefits only the Israeli occupation.”

In a statement on Tuesday evening, the Palestinian movement said it “rejects these Iranian interventions, and will not allow the cause and the blood of the Palestinians to be exploited or used as a card for the benefit of suspicious projects that have nothing to do with our Palestinian people or our national cause.”

The statement came in the wake of violent clashes between Palestinian militants affiliated with the so-called Tulkarm Brigade and the PA’s security services in the northern West Bank, leading to deaths and injuries, and deepening tensions in the area.

The security services accused gunmen of shooting at them. The Tulkarm Brigade, which is affiliated with the Jerusalem Brigades (the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad movement), mourned one of its field commanders whom it said was killed by the security forces.

Scenes broadcast by local Palestinian platforms showed violent armed confrontations between the two sides, in a repeat of clashes that broke out two weeks ago in Jenin in the northern West Bank after Israel assassinated two wanted persons.

Fatah spokesman Jamal Nazzal said: “Iran’s fingerprints on the Palestinian reality are present and destructive,” pointing to the presence of “Iranian outposts in areas of the West Bank, such as Tulkarm.”

A senior security source told Asharq Al-Awsat that Hamas “is inciting against the authority in the West Bank, just as it is provoking the authority in the Kingdom of Jordan and everywhere.”

Since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza, Hamas has worked to push the West Bank towards a greater confrontation with Israel, and has issued explicit calls for an open war.



Defending Migrants Was a Priority for Pope Francis from the Earliest Days of His Papacy 

Pope Francis poses for selfie photos with migrants at a regional migrant center in Bologna, Italy, Oct. 1, 2017. (AP)
Pope Francis poses for selfie photos with migrants at a regional migrant center in Bologna, Italy, Oct. 1, 2017. (AP)
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Defending Migrants Was a Priority for Pope Francis from the Earliest Days of His Papacy 

Pope Francis poses for selfie photos with migrants at a regional migrant center in Bologna, Italy, Oct. 1, 2017. (AP)
Pope Francis poses for selfie photos with migrants at a regional migrant center in Bologna, Italy, Oct. 1, 2017. (AP)

Advocating for migrants was one of Pope Francis' top priorities. His papacy saw a refugee crisis in the Mediterranean, skyrocketing numbers of migrants in the Americas, and declining public empathy that led to increasingly restrictive policies around the world.

Francis repeatedly took up the plight of migrants — from bringing asylum-seekers to the Vatican with him from overcrowded island camps to denouncing border initiatives of US President Donald Trump. On the day before his death, Francis briefly met with Vice President JD Vance, with whom he had tangled long-distance over deportation plans.

Some memorable moments when Francis spoke out to defend migrants:

July 8, 2013, Lampedusa, Italy

For his first pastoral visit outside Rome following his election, Francis traveled to the Italian island of Lampedusa — a speck in the Mediterranean whose proximity to North Africa put it on the front line of many smuggling routes and deadly shipwrecks.

Meeting migrants who had been in Libya, he decried their suffering and denounced the “globalization of indifference” that met those who risked their lives trying to reach Europe.

A decade later, in a September 2023 visit to the multicultural French port of Marseille, Francis again blasted the “fanaticism of indifference” toward migrants as European policymakers doubled down on borders amid the rise of the anti-immigration far-right.

April 16, 2016, Lesbos, Greece

Francis traveled to the Greek island of Lesbos at the height of a refugee crisis in which hundreds of thousands of people arrived after fleeing civil war in Syria and other conflicts in the Middle East and South Asia.

He brought three Muslim families to Italy on the papal plane. Rescuing those 12 Syrians from an overwhelmed island camp was “a drop of water in the sea. But after this drop, the sea will never be the same,” Francis said.

During his hospitalization in early 2025, one of those families that settled in Rome said Francis didn't just change their lives.

“He wanted to begin a global dialogue to let world leaders know that even an undocumented migrant is not something to fear,” said Hasan Zaheda.

His wife, Nour Essa, added: “He fought to broadcast migrant voices, to explain that migrants in the end are just human beings who have suffered in wars.”

The news of Francis' death shocked the family and they mourned “with the whole of humanity,” Zaheda said.

In December 2021, Francis again had a dozen asylum-seekers brought to Italy, this time following his visit to Cyprus.

Feb. 17, 2016, at the US-Mexico border

Celebrating a Mass near the US border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, that was beamed live to neighboring El Paso, Texas, Francis prayed for “open hearts” when faced with the “human tragedy that is forced migration.”

Answering a reporter’s question while flying back to Rome, Francis said a person who advocates building walls is “not Christian.” Trump, at the time a presidential candidate, was campaigning to do just that, and responded that it was “disgraceful” to question a person’s faith. He criticized the pope for not understanding “the danger of the open border that we have with Mexico.”

Oct. 24, 2021, Vatican City

As pressures surged in Italy and elsewhere in Europe to crack down on illegal migration, Francis made an impassioned plea to end the practice of returning those people rescued at sea to Libya and other unsafe countries where they suffer “inhumane violence.”

He called detention facilities in Libya “true concentration camps.” From there, thousands of migrants are taken by traffickers on often unseaworthy vessels. The Mediterranean Sea has become the world’s largest migrant grave with more than 30,000 deaths since 2014, when the International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project began counting.

Feb. 12, 2025, Vatican City

After Trump returned to the White House in part by riding a wave of public anger at illegal immigration, Francis assailed US plans for mass deportations, calling them “a disgrace.”

With Trump making a flurry of policy changes cracking down on immigration practices, Francis wrote to US bishops and warned that deportations “will end badly.”

“The act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women,” he wrote.

US border czar Tom Homan immediately pushed back, noting the Vatican is a city-state surrounded by walls and that Francis should leave border enforcement to his office.

When Vance visited over Easter weekend, he first met with the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. Afterward, the Holy See reaffirmed cordial relations and common interests, but noted “an exchange of opinions” over current international conflicts, migrants and prisoners.