Palestinian activist calls Palestinian Authority subcontractor of Zionist regime

When he was locked up last week by Palestinian security forces, rights activist Issa Amro said he was thinking about his friend Nizar Banat, who would be dead within days.

Both men had become prominent critics of the Palestinian Authority, which activists say has grown increasingly intolerant of dissent under the influence of the Zionist regime.

Banat's death on Thursday at age 43, shortly after security forces stormed his home and violently arrested him, sparked days of angry protests in the occupied West Bank.

"When they forcefully arrested me on a baseless charge, I felt that they were determined to get rid of us," 41-year-old Amro told AFP, referring to the PA's alleged crackdown on critics.

"When I was in detention I thought about my friend Nizar," Amro said. "I don't think they were planning to kill him. I think they used violence on his body (to silence) him."

Amro, like Banat, is from Al-Khalil (Hebron), a flashpoint West Bank city where roughly 1,000 Zionist settlers live under heavy Israeli military protection surrounded by some 200,000 Palestinians.

Both men have long records condemning the Israeli occupation, but they have also criticised the PA, which stands accused by rights groups of corruption and other violations.

In 2018, New York-based group Human Rights Watch charged that the PA was guilty of "arbitrary arrests" and the "systematic practice of torture" that "may amount to a crime against humanity".

Amro is the founder of Youth Against Settlements, a Hebron-based group that campaigns against the proliferation of Zionist settlements in the West Bank.

He told AFP he had lost track of the number of times he had been arrested by Israel.

"Sometimes twice a week, sometimes twice a day," he recalled.

Amro, asked about the nature of the threats he perceived from both the PA and the Zionist regime, said: "I feel sometimes I am a lonely person between two dictatorships.

"I'm scared of both," he said, describing the Palestinian Authority as a "subcontractor" of Israel.