Dahlan, Mohammed

Mohammed Dahlan was born on September 29, 1961 in a family of Palestinian refugees . In 1981, he participated in the creation of the youth branch of the Fatah party , in the same year he was arrested by Israeli secret services and sentenced to 5 years in prison ^[1] . In 1988, for participating in the first intifada, he was again arrested and deported to Jordan. Then, in Tunisia, Dahlan joined the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and, as the PLO coordinator for organizing the intifada, won the confidence of Yasser Arafat .

Following the signing of the Oslo Accords , Dahlan was appointed Head of the Preventive Security Service in the Gaza Strip . During this period, he enjoyed wide popularity among the people.

Subsequently, he took many contradictory steps for Palestinian society - suppressed terrorist activities in the Gaza Strip , participated in negotiations with Israel and actively opposed the Islamic opposition, besides maintaining good relations with Israel and the United States . In addition, his relationship with his West Bank counterpart, Djibril Rajub , was strained.

During the Second Intifada , Dakhlan’s popularity fell somewhat as a result of his anti-terrorist stance and moderate views. Dakhlan criticized Arafat and the Fatah party leadership for corruption, and at the beginning of the intifada actively opposed the organization of terrorist attacks in Israel. He always emphasized that the struggle against the Jews is permissible only within the borders of 1967 , and should be “popular”.

According to Israeli intelligence, Dahlan was involved in organizing a terrorist attack on a school bus in the Gaza Strip on November 20, 2000. He himself repeatedly denied involvement in this terrorist attack.