Arafat Death Probe Head: “Somebody Wants To Silence Me”

(November 14, 2022 / Israel Hayom) Over the past week, hundreds of testimonies and documents from the Palestinian investigation into the circumstances of the death of Yasser Arafat have been leaked to social media and Palestinian media outlets.

Information from the probe over a decade ago continues to leak and every day new testimonies of persons who appeared before the investigative committee have been made public. Senior Palestinian officials testified that Arafat saw Mahmoud Abbas—now the head of the Palestinian Authority—as a collaborator with Israel and the United States and feared a conspiracy was being weaved against him at the time of the siege of the Muqata’a—the Palestinian presidential compound in Ramallah—during the Second Intifada before he died in mysterious circumstances in a French hospital in November 2004.

The leaks and the Arafat file which was never closed are just part of the story. Another element pertains to infighting within the Palestinian leadership and the battle to succeed President Mahmoud Abbas.

Tirawi denies these allegations and has implored the Palestinian security services to investigate how the hack occurred and how the documents were stolen. “They have the ability to get to whoever did this. First of all, who leaked it and then to investigate who published it,” says Tirawi. “How is it possible that something so important and sensitive has been hacked? It is the security services’ responsibility to find out the truth.”