Marwan Barghouti, son of Palestinian president elected to top Fatah body

Jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti and the son of President Mahmoud Abbas secured seats on Fatah’s leadership body, as the group concluded its 3-day congress on Monday.

Citing preliminary official results, Fath said in a statement 18 members were elected to the group’s Central Committee, with Barghouti gaining the highest number of votes. Barghouti has been jailed by Israel since 2002.

Yasser Abbas, the son of the Palestinian president, was also elected to the committee, along with head of the Palestinian Intelligence Service Majed Faraj, head of the Palestinian Football Association Jibril Rajoub, Vice President Hussein al-Sheikh, and Zakaria Zubeidi, a former commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

The announcement came as Fatah concluded its eighth congress at the Palestinian presidential headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

In a final statement, the group accused Israel of continuing to impose “existential challenges” on Palestinians amid the ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip and escalating attacks in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

“Fatah will continue the struggle through all political and popular means to end the occupation and establish a fully sovereign independent Palestinian state,” it said.

The statement stressed that the Palestine Liberation Organization is “the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people,” and that any path toward national unity “must take place within its framework and be based on commitment to its decisions.”

Jerusalem is “the eternal capital of the State of Palestine,” Fatah said, pledging to continue confronting attempts to Judaize the city and alter its religious and historical character.

On Gaza, the statement described the enclave as “the womb of the revolution,” stressing that “there is no state without Gaza and no state in Gaza.” It called for ending the Israeli war on the enclave, lifting the blockade, ensuring the entry of aid and accelerating reconstruction.

It stressed that any future arrangements in Gaza must take place exclusively within the framework of the Palestinian government.

Fatah called on Arab countries to shoulder their responsibilities and fulfill their financial and political commitments to the Palestinian cause. It also affirmed the movement’s commitment to internal reform and to strengthening the principles of good governance, transparency and accountability.

Fatah held its first congress in Damascus, Syria, in 1967.

The group held its second congress in Zabadani, Syria, in 1968, where it elected a new 10-member Central Committee and formed a Revolutionary Council. It held its third congress in 1971, its fourth in 1980 in Damascus and its fifth in 1988 in Tunisia.

The eighth congress was the third to have been held inside Palestine, after its previous meetings in Bethlehem in 2009 and Ramallah in 2016.

*Writing by Lina Altawell in Istanbul