Today (Friday) the Palestinian people are marking eighteen years since the death of Yasser Arafat, the former chairman of the Palestinian Authority, this against the background of hundreds of documents related to the assassination case and testimonies of senior Palestinian members of the commission of inquiry that were leaked to social networks. As I recall, the committee of inquiry established in 2010 surrounding his death did not publish its results to date.
Sources from the Fatah movement and well-informed security sources confirmed to the Arab news agency “Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed” that a joint investigation of the Palestinian security mechanisms and the security intelligence services has been launched, the purpose of which is to investigate who leaked the Arafat assassination investigation file to the media platforms, hundreds of documents and testimonies of Fatah leaders and Palestinian officials.
The head of the investigation committee into Arafat’s death, Major General Tawfiq al-Tirawi, confirmed to the news agency the readiness of the security committee to be established and said: “I called the investigation committee that looked into the leaks, and officials in the security services said that the committee is still working and investigating.”
Political sources believe that the leaking of an entire file, containing hundreds of documents and testimonies, is an action that comes to “close accounts” between the heads of the Fatah movement as part of the battle for succession “on the day after Abu Mazen”.
The leader of the Fatah movement and Arafat’s nephew, Nasser al-Kidwa, stated to the Arab media: “I am completely convinced that the issue of leaks is now part of the internal conflict situation, more than it has anything to do with it.” He continued: “My position from the beginning regarding the murder of Yasser Arafat has not changed, and the full responsibility for the murder lies with the Israeli occupation, any other word is a dismantling of this fact.”
The leaks come weeks after the leaks of voicemails attributed to Major al-Tirawi. The announcements led to great tension in the relationship between him and the central member of the Fatah movement and the secretary of the liberation organization, Hussein al-Sheikh, which caused al-Tirawi to suspend his presence at the meetings of the movement’s central committee.
This is not the first time that Abu Mazen’s name has been mentioned regarding the assassination of Arafat. The head of the political department of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Farouk Kadumi, previously accused him of complicity in Arafat’s murder, when he stated this to the press in the Jordanian capital in July 2009.