A former Palestinian Authority intelligence chief on Tuesday publicly accused the Palestinian leadership of allowing systemic corruption to flourish within its institutions, in a rare appeal addressed directly to PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
In an open letter, Tawfik Tirawi, 77, said he repeatedly alerted Abbas to cases of graft, but to no avail.
“The corruption system now operates with confidence and immunity,” wrote Tirawi, a senior member of the Fatah central committee led by Abbas, whose presidential mandate expired in 2009.
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Tirawi alleged the involvement of businesses and individuals in the takeover of public and private lands and assets, describing what he called a “moral and ethical collapse” of Palestinian institutions.
He also accused aides around Abbas, who is 90, of “deliberately hiding the truth” from him.
Tirawi, an outspoken Abbas critic, said that after consulting with other Fatah figures, he decided to make the issue public, warning that if the situation persisted he would disclose details of specific cases to the media.
“Did our people make all these sacrifices — martyrs, prisoners and wounded — only for us to reach a stage where thieves and land brokers are left to spread corruption without deterrence or accountability?” he wrote.
Tirawi has in the past advocated for armed Palestinian resistance against Israel, and praised his then-2-year-old son for expressing his desire to kill “Zionists” in a children’s song.
His remarks come at a particularly fraught moment for Palestinian society, after more than two years of war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, sparked by the terror group’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, and escalating violence in the West Bank.
A fragile ceasefire came into force in Gaza in October as part of US President Donald Trump’s peace initiative, setting in motion a complex Palestinian political reform process and reigniting debate over governance.
Within the pockets of the West Bank that it administers, the PA is notorious for corruption.
Critics say the system lined the pockets of elites with tax proceeds and international aid, while funneling much of what was left to a massive security apparatus trained to crack down on dissent at the behest of its patrons.
Abbas has been in office for 20 years, and for nearly the entire time has failed to hold elections.
Abbas rarely leaves his headquarters in the city of Ramallah, except to travel abroad. He limits decision-making to his tight inner circle, including Hussein al-Sheikh, a longtime confidant whom he named as his designated successor in April.
An October poll by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 80 percent of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza want Abbas to resign.
Abbas has made some gestures toward reform, and has promised legislative and presidential elections within a year after the war in Gaza ends.
A man walks past a mural depicting Palestinian convict Marwan Barghouti, with a message that reads in Arabic, ‘See you soon,’ on Israel’s security fence in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, August 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
In a high-profile move against corruption, the PA transport minister was removed in October and put under investigation on allegations of bribery, according to local media.
Palestinians are skeptical about the changes. In the PCPSR poll, 60% of respondents said they doubted Abbas will hold elections.
It found that if a vote were held, the clear winner would be Marwan Barghouti, a senior military figure from Abbas’s Fatah faction serving life in Israeli prison since 2002 in connection with deadly terror attacks during the Second Intifada. Abbas would come a distant third behind any Hamas candidate.
