Moussa Arafat

Moussa Arafat al-Qudwa (; 23 January 1940 – 7 September 2005) was a Palestinian politician, one of the founders of Fatah and a leading official in the Fatah Revolutionary Council. He was a cousin of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

Career Moussa Arafat was chief of the Palestinian Military Intelligence Service in the 1990s.

Following the conflict, Yasser Arafat reshuffled the Gaza security apparatus and appointed Abdel-Razek al-Majaideh to the new post of overall director of security for the West Bank and Gaza, outranking Moussa Arafat.

In April 2005, Arafat was removed from his position as security chief but was subsequently named as adviser on military affairs

A power struggle between rival Palestinian factions emerged in Gaza and the West Bank in anticipation of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw troops and settlers from the occupied territory by the end of 2005.

In 2003, Arafat escaped injury in an explosion in his office caused by rockets fired, he claimed, by Palestinian enemies. In October 2004, Moussa Arafat and a top security official in the Gaza Strip, survived a car bomb that exploded in his convoy.

Aftermath of Moussa Arafat's assassination Mohammed Abdel Al, a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), a militant group, claimed responsibility for Arafat's assassination, saying it killed Arafat to punish him for corruption after the Palestinian security forces had taken no action against him. The PRC consists mainly of former members of the Fatah movement, who have accused Palestinian leaders of graft.

Mahmoud Abbas pledged to track down Arafat's killers but nothing was done. The main suspects are Palestinian offshoot groups.

Arafat's oldest son, Manhal, and three bodyguards were kidnapped by the gunmen who killed Arafat. The bodyguards were released shortly thereafter, but Manhal was held for a day before being released to an Egyptian government delegation in Gaza.