Mohammad Dahlan in his office in Abu Dhabi, Sep. 16, 2015. (Credit: STR/AFP)
"Let Hamas kill me, I want to be close to my people." That was Mohammad Dahlan’s defiant message in 2006, after Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections. At the time, Dahlan made no secret of his hostility toward Hamas, having been accused of leading a brutal crackdown on the movement in the 1990s. Hamas’ rise to power forced him out of the Gaza Strip the following year and made him one of the leading architects of Fatah’s failed attempt to retake control of the enclave.Exiled to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the former head of Gaza’s Palestinian Preventive Security Service has never returned to his native territory. Twenty years later, Dahlan’s name has resurfaced at the center of discussions over the "day after" in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, as well as in preparations for the upcoming Palestinian...
"Let Hamas kill me, I want to be close to my people." That was Mohammad Dahlan’s defiant message in 2006, after Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections. At the time, Dahlan made no secret of his hostility toward Hamas, having been accused of leading a brutal crackdown on the movement in the 1990s. Hamas’ rise to power forced him out of the Gaza Strip the following year and made him one of the leading architects of Fatah’s failed attempt to retake control of the enclave.Exiled to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the former head of Gaza’s Palestinian Preventive Security Service has never returned to his native territory. Twenty years later, Dahlan’s name has resurfaced at the center of discussions over the "day after" in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, as well as in preparations for the upcoming...