On Tuesday, February 18, the President of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Mahmoud Abbas, dismissed the head of the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, Qadura Fares, replacing him with Raed Abu al-Hummus.
The dismissal of Fares came after he criticized Abbas for issuing a decree on Monday, February 10, to cut “stipends to the families of Palestinians killed by Israel or who are imprisoned in Israeli jails.”
Resistance leaders denounce PA’s decision as capitulation to US interests
Analysts have considered Abbas’s move to end the fund as an “overture” to Trump as the payments have always been a point of pressure against the PA from the US and Israel.
The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) denounced the PA’s decree in a statement, describing it as “an unpatriotic act that represents an estrangement from one of the national constants.” The movement called on the PA to immediately rescind the decision and not to acquiesce to the pressure of the Zionist occupation and the US administration.
Hamas also condemned the dismissal of Fares in a statement issued on Tuesday, considering it part of the PA’s “attempts to silence national voices and punish everyone who stands with prisoners, martyrs and their rights.”
The movement pointed out that the decision to sack Fares reflects an “approach of repression and exclusion and is a dangerous deviation from national constants, and submission to Zionist and American dictates that target the prisoners’ struggle and their just cause.”
For his part, political activist, freedom fighter, and former prisoner in Israeli jails, Omar Assaf, slammed the PA for dismissing Fares, saying that the action “reveals the insistence of the Palestinian Authority and its powerful leadership to proceed in ending the prisoners’ cause.”
Assaf considered the move “a message to whoever opposes these illegal decisions that they would face the same destiny of Qadura and former honorable opponents.”
US cuts aid to the PA despite its attempts to appease the Trump’s administration
The PA has historically made gestures of allegiance and obedience to the US and Israel by cracking down on the Palestinian people and resistance movements. Many see the cuts to allocations for the families of those killed or imprisoned by Israeli Occupation Forces as another such gesture.
In December 2024, the PA launched an intensified security campaign and imposed a strict siege on Jenin refugee camp to crush the Palestinian resistance there. The campaign resulted in the killing of several Palestinian civilians by the PA’s security forces and is believed to have paved the way for Israel’s current deadly “Iron Wall” operation in the northern West Bank.
However, the PA’s strenuous attempts to appease the US by suppressing Palestinians have apparently been in vain. Reports surfaced on Wednesday, February 19, that the Trump administration halted the funding to the PA’s security forces as part of a broader freeze on foreign aid.
The PA received this heavy blow from the US after already losing popularity among the Palestinian grassroots due to its inaction during Israel’s genocidal aggression on Gaza, and its shocking practices against Palestinians in the West Bank.
