A recent conference held to elect new figures to leadership roles within the Palestinian political party Fatah was also a showcase of the growing power and influence of ex-prisoners, including many serving life sentences who were released from Israeli jails under deals that freed hostages held by terror groups in Gaza.

The May 14 convention, the first such gathering in a decade, saw the party led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas extend voting rights to 388 ex-prisoners, representing some 15 percent of the approximately 2,500 party members eligible to cast ballots, according to Raed Abu al-Humus, who heads the Palestinian Prisoners’ Affairs Authority, which operates under the PA.

The group included 30 former prisoners who ran for seats on Fatah’s Central Committee and Revolutionary Council, a number of whom had spent decades in jail for their roles in deadly terror attacks on Israelis. The two top leadership bodies have significant roles guiding the party, which dominates West Bank politics and largely controls the Western-backed PA and Palestine Liberation Organization.

According to the Prisoners’ Authority, the decision to extend voting rights to hundreds of former prisoners as a bloc was pushed by Abbas and other Fatah leaders in recognition of their growing numbers and influence.

“This is the first time the membership of released prisoners has reached such large numbers, and therefore they must appear in a manner worthy of the scale of struggle and sacrifices represented by the hundreds and thousands of years ‘burned’ inside prisons and detention centers,” Abu al-Humus said in a Facebook post ahead of the conference.

In general, Fatah extends voting rights based on criteria such as age, seniority and and geographic representation. However, this time it also opened up voting rights to Fatah-affiliated former prisoners who served at least 20 years in Israeli prisons.

In one sign of prisoners’ central place in the conference, voting was held not only in the West Bank but also in Cairo, where many former prisoners have been deported.

According to Yossi Kuperwasser, head of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, the move to grant ex-prisoners voting rights was an expression of the esteem Fatah and Palestinian society in general hold for those involved in armed opposition to Israel who “paid the price” for their actions.

“In Fatah’s view, and in the broader Palestinian view, the terrorists are the fighting sector of Palestinian society. That’s how these people are seen,” said Kuperwasser, a former head of research for military intelligence. “They are role models, and of course they should be given respect and integrated into Palestinian political frameworks.”

Fatah forswore armed resistance to Israel as part of the peace process, but terror groups continued to operate under its direct authority until the mid-2000s, particularly the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, which operated as Fatah’s armed wing, and the more grassroots Tanzim.

The party’s ties with armed groups dissipated following the 2000-2005 Second Intifada, though veterans of terror groups remain members of Fatah.

At the same time, many Palestinians continue to support violent struggle. Polling by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research showed that as of late 2024, around half of all Palestinians surveyed supported armed resistance as the best way to achieve independence.

Kuperwasser noted that during the conference, a brief mention of the prisoners by Abbas prompted........

© The Times of Israel