Nizar Banat’s death highlights brutality of Palestinian Authority

Killing of the strident Fatah critic has underlined the PA's complicity with Israel and how far Mahmoud Abbas will go to crush dissent

Nizar Banat knew he was going to die. As he grew bolder calling out corrupt members of Fatah, the party which controls the Palestinian Authority, the death threats mounted. In May, his home near Hebron was attacked by masked gunmen on motorbikes, in an incident which left his children traumatised.

After that, the political activist decided it wasn't safe to stay home. He went to his cousin's house in H2 [an area of Hebron city controlled by the Israeli military] because he hoped Fatah and the PA could not reach him there, but he knew they were coming for him," said Jihan, Banat's widow, as she hugged their youngest son in the family's reception room in the village of Dura. The front of the house is still pockmarked with bullet holes. He told me: I don't want to be killed in front of the children.'"