Preliminary results from the elections for Fatah’s Central Committee, the small leadership body of around 20 members that runs the movement currently controlling the Palestinian Authority, showed that PA President Mahmoud Abbas was elected to the panel, Palestinian media outlets reported Sunday.

Fatah, like the PA, is headed by the elder Abbas, whose son Yasser Abbas is seen as his possible successor.

The younger Abbas, 64, a millionaire businessman who spends most of his time in Canada, secured a place on the central committee after being appointed around five years ago as his father’s “special representative” — a role that marked his emergence on the political scene.

Marwan Barghouti, a popular Palestinian leader held in Israeli prison since 2002 for a series of terror offenses, topped the preliminary results, retaining his seat on the committee with the highest number of votes, according to figures seen by AFP.

Jibril Rajoub was reelected as the secretary-general of the committee, keeping the seat he has held since 2017, while Palestinian Authority Vice President Hussein Al-Sheikh was also reelected.

Majed Faraj, head of the Palestinian General Intelligence Service, one of the PA’s security bodies, who is also considered close to Abbas, was also reelected, as was Mahmoud al-Aloul, Abbas’s deputy in Fatah.

According to the reports, Leila Ghannam, the governor of the Ramallah district, who is also considered close to Abbas, was elected as a new member of the Central Committee.

Among the newcomers was Zakaria Zubeidi, 50, a former commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group — Fatah’s armed wing — in the Jenin refugee camp, who was freed from Israeli prison last year under a prisoner exchange deal with Hamas amid the war triggered by the Palestinian terror group’s October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel.

Zubeidi organized dozens of terror attacks during the Second Intifada, and was one of six prisoners who briefly escaped from Gilboa prison in 2021, before being recaptured.

The results were not official.

With several existing........

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