عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Features

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)
TT
TT

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.

Most Viewed

 
 
Features

Watching the Sun Rise over a New Damascus

Damascus is seen at sunrise from Mount Qasyun, which for years was off limits to regular people. (AFP)
Damascus is seen at sunrise from Mount Qasyun, which for years was off limits to regular people. (AFP)
TT
TT

Watching the Sun Rise over a New Damascus

Damascus is seen at sunrise from Mount Qasyun, which for years was off limits to regular people. (AFP)
Damascus is seen at sunrise from Mount Qasyun, which for years was off limits to regular people. (AFP)

After the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Afaf Mohammed did what she could not for more than a decade: she climbed Mount Qasyun to admire a sleeping Damascus "from the sky" and watch the sun rise.

Through the long years of Syria's civil war, which began in 2011 with a government crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, people were not allowed access to the mountain.

But now they can return to look down again on their capital, with its high-rise hotels and poor suburbs exhausted by war.

When night falls, long queues of vehicles slowly make their way up a twisting road to a brightly lit corniche at the summit.

Once there, they can relax, listen to music, eat and, inevitably, take selfies.

On some evenings there have even been firework displays.

Afaf Mohammed told AFP that "during the war we weren't allowed up to Mount Qasyun. There were few public places that were truly accessible."

At her feet, the panorama of Syria's capital stretched far and wide. It was the second time in weeks that the dentist in her thirties had come to the mountaintop.

A man sells tea on Mount Qasyun, from which government artillery used to pound opposition-held areas under Assad's rule. (AFP)

- Ideal for snipers -

Her first was just after a coalition of opposition fighters entered the city, ousting Assad on December 8.

On that occasion she came at dawn.

"I can't describe how I felt after we had gone through 13 years of hardship," she said, wrapped close in an abaya to ward off the chilly breeze.

Qasyun was off limits to the people of Damascus because it was an ideal location for snipers -- the great view includes elegant presidential palaces and other government buildings.

It was also from this mountain that artillery units for years pounded opposition-held areas at the gates of the capital.

Mohammed believes the revolution brought "a phenomenal freedom" that includes the right to visit previously forbidden places.

"No one can stop us now or block our way. No one will harm us," she said.

Patrols from the security forces of Syria's new rulers are in evidence, however.

They look on as a boy plays a tabla drum and young people on folding chairs puff from water pipes as others dance and sing, clapping their hands.

Everything is good-natured, reflecting the atmosphere of freedom that now bathes Syria since the end of Assad rule.

Gone are the stifling restrictions that once ruled the people's lives, and soldiers no longer throng the city streets.

Visitors to Mount Qasyun can now relax, listen to music, eat and snap selfies. (AFP)

- Hot drinks and snacks -

Mohammad Yehia, in his forties, said he once brought his son Rabih up to Mount Qasyun when he was small.

"But he doesn't remember having been here," he said.

After Assad fell, his son "asked if we would be allowed to go up there, and I said, 'Of course'," Yehia added.

So they came the next day.

Yehia knows the place well -- he used to work here, serving hot drinks and snacks from the back of a van to onlookers who came to admire the view.

He prides himself on being one of the first to come back again, more than a decade later.

The closure of Mount Qasyun to the people of Damascus robbed him of his livelihood at a time when the country was in economic freefall under Western sanctions. The war placed a yoke of poverty on 90 percent of the population.

"We were at the suffocation point," Yehia told AFP.

"Even if you worked all day, you still couldn't make ends meet.

"This is the only place where the people of Damascus can come and breathe a little. It's a spectacular view... it can make us forget the worries of the past."

Malak Mohammed, who came up the mountain with her sister Afaf, said that on returning "for the first time since childhood" she felt "immense joy".

"It's as if we were getting our whole country back," Malak said. Before, "we were deprived of everything".