Shin Bet head said to meet exiled PA Gaza security chief Dahlan in UAE

Report does not clarify the topic of the meeting, though the former Fatah strongman has long advocated for reforming the Palestinian Authority, bringing democracy to the Strip

Shin Bet chief David Zini met with the Palestinian Authority’s exiled former Gaza security chief Mohammed Dahlan during a recent visit to the United Arab Emirates, the Kan public broadcaster reported Tuesday.

The report, which cited regional and Israeli sources, did not provide any details about the alleged meeting between the two men or clarify exactly when it took place.

The Shin Bet, in response to an inquiry from Kan, said it would not comment on Zini’s schedule.

Dahlan, who headed the Palestinian Preventive Security Force in the Gaza Strip from its inception in 1994 until his resignation in 2002, has been a longtime critic of both Hamas and the current leadership of the Palestinian Authority, a fact for which he was exiled from Ramallah to Abu Dhabi in 2011.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas has long withstood calls to reconcile with Dahlan, who has become a close confidant of UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed and has been more freely able to criticize the PA’s conduct.

A 2024 report in The Wall Street Journal suggested that several officials, including in Israel, were pushing for Dahlan to oversee Gaza in the postwar era.

The former Fatah strongman has been advocating for a postwar transition to democracy in Gaza since late October 2023, after Hamas’s October 7 assault on Israel sparked the war in the Palestinian enclave.

At the time, Dahlan told The Economist that he believed the Strip should be governed by a technocratic government for two years before heading to elections, based on a Palestinian state, even one without defined borders.

Such a borderless state could receive international backing from Arab countries, Dahlan argued, at which point it would be internationally recognized and able to forge a final agreement with Israel.

Despite similarities with his vision, there has been no confirmation that Dahlan is involved with US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan for ending the Gaza war and ushering the war-torn enclave into a post-Hamas era.

Saudi news outlet Asharq Al-Awsat reported earlier this year, however, that he did have a role in the appointment of fellow Fatah security veteran Sami Nasam to head up the internal security and policing commission within the US-backed National Committee for the Administration of Gaza.