Fatah-al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades revokes Israeli amnesty deal offered 178 members for renouncing terror Their commanders announced they were reverting to their old routines, namely terrorist attacks on Israelis.
Tuesday morning, Aug. 21, three days after Israel’s internal security minister Avi Dichter disclosed that 40% of the group which took the pledge to give up terrorism had not turned in their weapons, the IDF rounded up two purportedly reformed al Aqsa Brigades members in a camp near Nablus.
Both had appeared the wanted list of Fatah terrorists until they surrendered their weapons and pledged to give up violence in return for an Israeli promise to stop pursuing them. The two men arrested, Iyad Basharat and Ahmad Abu Jalal, were found with guns and explosive devices. Their promise had held up for less than a month.
Nevertheless, al Aqsa Brigades chiefs demanded that Mahmoud Abbas and prime minister Salam Fayyad intercede with Israel to obtain their two members’ release. Neither responded. The al Aqsa chiefs then announced that the deal with Israel was null and void.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert’s explanation for offering the amnesty was that it would strengthen Abbas and persuade former Fatah terrorists to fight Hamas on the West Bank. But this never happened. The Fatah terrorists never joined the campaign to secure the West Bank against Hamas influence; nor did they turn in their guns, only rusty rifles of First World War vintage.
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