Turning Gazas lights back on, Abbas rival Dahlan makes dramatic return to center stage

[Mosby]

Gaza’s electricity crisis may be drawing to an end, and as the lights come back on, Palestinians are looking at an unlikely hero who managed to broker a deal between Egypt and Hamas: Mohammad Dahlan.

Egypt on Tuesday was expected to begin sending dozens of fuel trucks to the Hamas-run Strip to bring the Gaza power station back online and supply electricity to residents.

Dahlan — a former Fatah leader once considered persona non grata by Hamas and ousted in the coup that put the Islamist terror group in power in the Strip 10 years ago — is understood to have been a key player in the electricity deal, and appears to have made his peace with the Islamists en route.

Dahlan, who maintains excellent links with Egypt and the United Arab Emirates and apparently managed the talks under Egypt’s auspices, is thus being depicted as the person who saved Gaza by having Cairo ship in hundreds of tons of industrial diesel — compensating for the cuts in supply that Israel introduced this week at Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s request.

By bringing fuel into Gaza, Dahlan will not only give residents additional precious electricity, but also seems to have defused a potentially disastrous situation and knocked Abbas, a rival of both him and Hamas, down a few pegs.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/turning-gazas-lights-back-on-abbass-rival-dahlan-makes-dramatic-return-to-center-stage/

Pretty interesting development, Dahlan and Hamas working together.

[Fozzledick]

1. Looks like Dahlan is positioning himself to succeed Abbas

with a bit of help from Egypt.

[Mosby]

2. Yeah, and he has a lot of support from the gulf countries. nt

[Mosby]

3. Hamas leader confirms alliance with Muhammad Dahlan against PA

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) -- Hamas politburo deputy chairman in the besieged Gaza Strip Khalil al-Hayya called on Sunday for the establishment of a “national rescue front” to challenge the Palestinian Authority (PA), confirming the Islamist movement's collaboration with discharged Fatah leader Muhammad Dahlan.

Al-Hayya, who was elected to the position in February, slammed the Fatah-led PA for its recent decision to request that Israel reduce its supply of electricity to the Gaza Strip, expected to have disastrous effects on Gaza's two million inhabitants and endanger the medical sector in particular.

"We won't stand idly by as these practices lead to deprivation of medicine," al-Hayya said in a statement. "This policy unites us all in Gaza and consolidates our belief that our plight is being hijacked by (PA President) Mahmoud Abbas."

Fatah and Hamas have been in conflict since the Hamas movement won Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006 by a landslide and wrestled control of the Gaza Strip a year later.

Following Hamas’ takeover, Israel imposed a stringent blockade on the small Palestinian territory that marked its ten-year anniversary earlier this month, amid an ever-worsening humanitarian situation.

Al-Hayya added that Hamas had agreed to cooperate with longtime Abbas rival Dahlan in order “to work together on social interests after Abbas crippled those interests."

https://maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=777710