Nablus -

“Leave, leave, Abbas,” “Palestine is free, free, oh Abbas, out.” Slogans chanted by hundreds of Palestinian demonstrators condemning the killing of the Palestinian political opponent, Nizar Banat, were scrawled over banners in bold, in An unprecedented step.

At the Al-Manara roundabout in the center of Ramallah in the West Bank, hundreds of Palestinians gathered yesterday, Saturday, to denounce the killing of Nizar Banat, after Palestinian security forces stormed a house he was in, south of Hebron last week.

The new demonstration was not only with its raised slogans or characters who flocked from various cities and villages of the West Bank, but was presented by the family of Banat (his brother and his mother) and others from Jerusalem and the occupied interior in 1948, and it was described with its boldness and its public demand for the departure of the Palestinian political system, without fear.

"The blood of Nizar Banat" is the engine of these crowds, according to analysts and observers who spoke to Al Jazeera Net, and their demand for the departure of the head of the regime is caused by the state of oppression and domination and the absence of freedoms and democracy from the Palestinian scene. foreign agendas or instigators".

The mother of the slain dissident Nizar Banat participates in the Ramallah protest demonstration (Al-Jazeera)

Corruption and lack of accountability

Khader said that all the Palestinians wanted - in the face of their historical struggle - was to build a democratic state that guarantees their rights and freedom as a result of what they experienced of persecution and killing under occupation, and therefore the people have the right to demonstrate and denounce the killing of a citizen who has no fault but to criticize the corrupt and demand accountability.

He believed that the killing of Nizar Banat blew up the situation and the state of repression, and mobilized the street against a "corrupt security mafia" that ruled it and took it to a dictatorial regime unprecedented in the history of the Arab region, as he described it.

Khader expected the popular movement to expand unless those who issued the decision to assassinate “girls” were held accountable and executed it at the security and political levels, “which disrupted and confiscated freedoms by preventing freedom of expression, demonstration and political pluralism in the service of the occupation and in exchange for privileges.”

Regarding the reluctance of the authority and its failure to detect and hold the killers of Nizar Banat accountable so far, Khader attributed this to being a “corrupt” and “gang” that manages its economic interests at the expense of the Palestinian people, and is not an institution governed by law.

Palestinian political activist Ismat Mansour agreed with Khader that the continuation of the demonstrations depends on real measures of the authority to convince the Palestinians of its seriousness to hold the perpetrators accountable, to try them publicly, and to carry out reforms, the first of which is to go to elections.

"As long as the authority does not open a dialogue with the components of civil and political society and the demonstrators, the ground will remain fertile for demonstrations, regardless of their size and mechanism," Mansour said.

He explained that what the authority has done so far is not enough. Rather, it has convinced itself and promoted that the issue is a "conspiracy and agendas", and this will strain the situation and not provide a solution, he believes.

Leaving.. in another way

Regarding the calls to “Go Abbas,” Mansour says that he participated in the demonstration, and that the slogan that appeared as if the march was being adopted did not express the opinion of all who agreed on the necessity of prosecuting Nizar’s killers, exposing the crime in all its aspects, reforming the political system, and holding elections. Through the ballot boxes, so be it."

Mansour - who together with the liberated prisoners put forward an initiative to heal the rift - did not hide that the killing of Nizar Banat shocked the Palestinians and caused anger and a reaction, the consequences of which are still present.

It was also an occasion to raise all outstanding issues such as elections, financial and political corruption, monopolization of government, absence of political partnership, and suppression of freedoms.

In a speech, Nizar's family called - through his brother Ghassan Banat - to demolish and rebuild the Palestinian political system so that the next Palestinian generation feels "safe and secure", and to consider "other than that" a betrayal of Nizar's blood.

The researcher at Yabous Center for Consultation and Strategic Studies, Suleiman Bisharat, agrees with his predecessors that the continuation of these demonstrations is due to the authority’s failure to take any actual steps “to prove the validity of its claim to hold the killers accountable,” such as investigation, arrest, dismissal, or even an official apology to the family of the deceased.

Palestinian security in the face of a Palestinian demonstration organized for the second week in Ramallah to protest the assassination of Nizar Banat (Al-Jazeera)

no agendas

Despite this, Bisharat believes that the demonstrations will not be prolonged, due to the failure of Palestinian society to reach the stage of "political maturity" to reject the current reality, in addition to the failure to adopt these movements from any political faction, in addition to the fact that the issue is linked to steps that may fold the file and bring about political reconciliation between the Banat family and the government.

The researcher ruled out the existence of agendas for popular rallies, and said that the majority of the demonstrators are activists and politicians far from factions, parties or specific political parties.

But he adds that the mistrust gap is widening between the Palestinian street and the leadership of the political authority, and this may motivate other groups to reject the continuation of the political reality.

Bisharat believes that the slogans are nothing but a Palestinian imitation of their Arab counterpart that was raised during the Arab Spring, despite the difference in the Palestinian political structure from its counterpart in the Arab regimes, so - as he said - "there may be "unrealism" in these slogans, and they are a kind of political rejection that is not Except".

Despite the authority's suppression and arrest of demonstrators in the Saturday march and its predecessors - especially the arrest of the candidate for the Legislative Council, Ghassan al-Saadi - this did not deter the demonstrators from calling for larger marches on Tuesday in the city of Hebron, and this in itself stirred the waters of fear that the authority is trying to keep stagnant.

The Fatah movement and its cadres affiliated with the authority organized a demonstration in support of President Mahmoud Abbas and the security authorities in the city of Hebron yesterday Saturday.