Key Takeaways:
- Former Fatah official and rival of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Mohammed Dahlan is moving closer to former enemies.
- Dahlan’s movement has its own connection to Gaza’s armed factional system.
- The prospective alliance includes factions with extensive records of violence.
Mohammed Dahlan, a former Fatah security chief pushed out of the party after clashing with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, is trying to regain influence in Palestinian politics.
He is doing so at an important moment.
Palestinian factions are preparing for legislative elections scheduled for November 28, 2026. Hamas is holding talks with Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Dahlan’s Democratic Reformist Current (DRC) on a joint alliance, and Palestinian sources say the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) could also join.
The factions have not finalized a joint list, and reporting differs on its eventual composition. But Dahlan’s involvement stands out.
Hamas, PIJ, the PFLP, and the DFLP are U.S.-designated terrorist groups that participated in the October 7, 2023 attack.
At the same time, Dahlan’s DRC has a documented connection to members of an armed Fatah-linked faction in Gaza.
That makes his political comeback more complicated than simply presenting him as an alternative to Hamas.
Who is Mohammed Dahlan?
Dahlan built his career inside Fatah, the secular Palestinian party that has dominated the Palestinian Authority (PA) for decades.
He headed the PA’s Preventive Security Organization in Gaza and later became a major figure in Fatah’s struggle with Hamas. The European Council on Foreign Relations traces Dahlan’s rise through the Palestinian security system and his role in preparations for the fighting that ended with Hamas seizing Gaza in 2007.
Mahmoud Abbas, who remains president of the PA’s and leader of Fatah, oversaw Dahlan’s removal from the movement. Growing tensions with Abbas led to Dahlan’s expulsion from Fatah in 2011. Dahlan later founded the DRC in Gaza in 2016 while living in exile in the United Arab Emirates.
Why Dahlan Matters Again
Dahlan now has channels to several sides that rarely deal easily with one another.
On August 1, he publicly claimed that Jared Kushner had communicated with him about Israel halting strikes after Hamas and other Palestinian factions accepted a disarmament proposal.
Le Monde separately reported that Dahlan has used ties to Trump’s inner circle while helping mediate discussions over Hamas’s disarmament.
He also retains some public support among Palestinians. An August poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 15 percent of Palestinians preferred Dahlan to succeed Abbas. Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya received 16 percent, while jailed Fatah figure Marwan Barghouti led with 39 percent.
Dahlan is also talking directly with Hamas.
On August 17, he led a delegation to Cairo to meet al-Hayya. The DRC later said the talks covered the Gaza ceasefire and efforts to create a common Palestinian political position.
His political comeback is also forcing Fatah to respond. PA Vice President Hussein al-Sheikh met DRC deputy leader Samir Mashharawi in Egypt on August 24 to discuss possible reconciliation between Fatah and Dahlan’s camp.
But Dahlan’s involvement is noteworthy because the groups around him are not ordinary political parties.
Dahlan’s access to Washington, renewed dialogue with Hamas and fresh engagement with Fatah make him increasingly difficult to ignore.
They also make his party’s past links to Gaza’s armed factional system more relevant.
The Martyr Nidal al-Amoudi Brigade Connection
There is evidence that the Dahlan-led DRC is linked to the Martyr Nidal al-Amoudi Brigade, an armed Fatah-linked faction in Gaza.
NGO Monitor identified the Martyr Nidal al-Amoudi Brigade in 2019 as part of Fatah’s military wing.
Later that year, Israeli strikes killed Wael Abdul Aziz Abdul Nabi, Rani Fayez Abu Nasr and Jihad Ayman Abu Khater near Beit Lahia. The brigade identified all three as members of its rocket unit. Contemporary documentation records that it described Abdul Nabi as the unit’s commander and Abu Nasr and Abu Khater as operatives.
Then the DRC issued its own statement.
The DRC named the same three men and called them “its righteous martyrs.” Its website published the original Arabic statement referring to the men possessively as its martyrs. The DRC’s own headline for the statement referred to four members of the brigade as martyrs, though its published text names only three; HonestReporting could not independently confirm the identity of a fourth.
That wording matters.
The DRC did not simply mourn Palestinians killed in an Israeli strike. It named men whom an armed Fatah-linked faction identified as members of its rocket unit and publicly claimed them as its own martyrs.
The Other Factions
The other groups in the prospective alliance have well-documented histories of violence.
The United States designated Hamas as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). The State Department documents that Hamas’s Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades have carried out suicide bombings, rocket launches, IED attacks and shootings against Israelis.
The United States also designated PIJ as an FTO in 1997. The State Department said that PIJ has carried out numerous attacks against Israeli civilian and military targets and launched waves of rocket fire into Israel.
The secular PFLP is also a U.S.-designated FTO. A State Department assessment details its history of aircraft hijackings, suicide bombings and the 2001 assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi.
The DFLP is not currently on the U.S. FTO list, but the Treasury Department lists the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Hawatmeh Faction as an SDGT, placing it under U.S. counterterrorism asset-blocking sanctions.
A State Department historical record recounts how DFLP gunmen carried out the 1974 Ma’alot attack, first killing civilians and then taking approximately 90 students and four teachers hostage.
What Kind of Alternative Is This?
Dahlan belongs in a different category from Hamas, PIJ and the PFLP. The United States does not designate his DRC as a terrorist organization, and the available evidence does not establish that it maintains its own military wing.
But the Nidal al-Amoudi evidence complicates any attempt to portray Dahlan’s movement as completely removed from Gaza’s armed factional system.
At the same time, the factions he is discussing cooperation with maintain armed wings and long histories of violence. Three are U.S.-designated FTOs, while the DFLP remains under U.S. counterterrorism sanctions.
The emerging coalition therefore looks less like a clean break with Palestinian factional politics than a possible reshuffling of it.
Dahlan may offer a political alternative to Hamas. But his new alliances, his measurable political support and Fatah’s renewed effort to engage his camp make his return more consequential, not less complicated.
If Palestinian politics is going to move beyond repeated cycles of armed conflict, the standard cannot simply be whether a faction is different from Hamas. It must be whether that organization is willing to break with the armed factional model altogether.
© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025
