Fatah has since its inception created, led or sponsored a number of armed groups and militias, some of which have had an official standing as the movement's armed wing, and some of which have not been publicly or even internally recognized as such.

Ahmed Qurei — a key Fatah negotiator during the negotiations in Oslo — publicly announced that the PLO was bankrupt.

The formation of BLR / Amal was revealed in July 1975 when an accidental explosion of a landmine at one of the ‘ Fatahland ’ camps near Baalbek killed over than 60 Shia trainees, which caused considerable embarrassment to Fatah and forced Al-Sadr to admit publicly the militia ’ s existence.

Fatah dedicated itself to the liberation of Palestine by an armed struggle carried out by Palestinians themselves.

The structure offered plausible deniability to the Fatah leadership, which was careful to distance itself from Black September operations.

It was formed in November 2006 by fighters who broke off from the pro-Syrian Fatah al-Intifada, itself a splinter group of the Palestinian Fatah movement, and is led by a Palestinian fugitive militant named Shaker al-Abssi.

Some groups within the PLO hold a more pan-Arabist view than Fatah, and Fatah itself has never renounced Arab nationalism in favour of a strictly Palestinian nationalist ideology.

In April 2011, officials from Hamas and Fatah announced that both parties had reached an initial deal to unify into one government, with plans for elections to be held in 2012.

However, on 28 December 2005, the leadership of the two factions agreed to submit a single list to voters, headed by Barghouti, who began actively campaigning for Fatah from his jail cell.

The Sixth General Assembly of the Fatah Movement, nearly 16 years after the Oslo Conference and 20 years since the last Fatah convention began on 4 August 2009, in Bethlehem, West Bank after being repeatedly postponed over conflicts ranging from who would be represented, to what venue would be acceptable.

Some 400 Fatah members from the Gaza Strip were unable to attend the conference in Bethlehem after Hamas barred them from traveling to the West Bank.

At least 70 new members entered the latter, with 20 seats going to Fatah representatives from the Gaza Strip, 11 seats filled by women ( the highest number of votes went to one woman who spent years in Israeli jails for her role in the resistance ), four seats went to Christians, and one was filled by a Jewish-born convert to Islam, Uri Davis, the first Jewish-born person to be elected to the Revolutionary Council since its founding in 1958.

Fatah activists from the Palestinian diaspora were also represented and included Samir Rifai, Fatah's secretary in Syria, and Khaled Abu Usba.

The Brigades are locally organized and have been said to suffer from poor cohesion and internal discipline, at times ignoring ceasefires and other initiatives announced by the central Fatah leadership.

As Arafat began to develop friendships with Palestinian refugees ( some of whom he knew also from his Cairo days ), he and the others gradually founded the group that became known as Fatah.

The operation was in response to attacks, including rockets strikes from Fatah and other Palestinian militias, within the occupied West Bank.

According to Said Aburish, the government of Jordan and a number of Fatah commandos informed Arafat that large-scale Israeli military preparations for an attack on the town were underway, prompting fedayeen groups, such as George Habash's newly formed group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine ( PFLP ) and Nayef Hawatmeh's breakaway organization the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine ( DFLP ), to withdraw their forces from the town.

" The Civil War's first phase ended and Arafat — who was commanding Fatah forces at Tel al-Zaatar — narrowly escaped with assistance from Saudi and Kuwaiti diplomats.

Others believe that Israel refrained from taking action against Arafat because it feared Arafat less than Hamas and the other Islamist movements gaining support over Fatah.

The adoption of the program, under pressure from Arafat's Fatah faction and some minor groups ( e. g. DFLP, al-Sa ' iqa ) led many hard-line groups to break away from the Arafat and the mainstream PLO members, forming the Rejectionist Front.

October 20: Brokered by Egyptian mediators, Fatah reaches a deal to end fighting between the Hamas and Fatah factions, both groups agreeing to refrain from acts that raise tensions and committing themselves to dialogue to resolve differences.

June 7: Battle of Gaza begins, resulting in Hamas taking control of the Gaza Strip from Fatah.

As a result of pressure from militants, writes Morris, a Fatah congress in Damascus in August – September 1971 agreed to establish Black September.

Local leadership came from groups and organizations affiliated with the PLO that operated within the Occupied Territories ; Fatah, the Popular Front, the Democratic Front and the Palestine Communist Party.

Barghouti still exerts great influence in Fatah from within prison.

He has stated that, " I, and the Fatah movement to which I belong, strongly oppose attacks and the targeting of civilians inside Israel, our future neighbor, I reserve the right to protect myself, to resist the Israeli occupation of my country and to fight for my freedom " and has said, " I still seek peaceful coexistence between the equal and independent countries of Israel and Palestine based on full withdrawal from Palestinian territories occupied in 1967.

The group has also dominated various PLO and Palestinian Authority forces and security services which were / are not officially tied to Fatah, but in practice have served as wholly pro-Fatah armed units, and been staffed largely by members.

* Black September – Black September was a group formed by leading Fatah members in 1971, following the " Black September " events in Jordan, to clandestinely organize attacks that Fatah did not want to be openly associated with.

* 1935 – Abu Jihad, Founder of the Palestinian group Fatah ( d. 1988 )

He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization ( PLO ), President of the Palestinian National Authority ( PNA ), and leader of the Fatah political party and former paramilitary group, which he founded in 1959.

We are committed to them and Fatah bears full responsibility for the group.

Fatah, the group that represented the Palestinians in the negotiations, accepted the accords.

The only group that waged uninterrupted attrition against Arafat was the Fatah Revolutionary Council led by maverick hardliner Sabri al-Banna ( better known as Abu Nidal ), who was viewed by other Palestinian organizations as not so much a guerrilla as a pure criminal with no higher goal than deposing the moderates at the head of the PLO.

Some of these refugee camps, overcrowded and filled with angry refugees, helped seed the beginnings of Yasser Arafat's Fatah group ; guerrilla attacks on Israel were launched from some of the Palestinian camps in Lebanon.

** In January 2006 the militant Hamas organization, classified as a terrorist group by the United States government and other groups, won a landslide victory over the ruling Fatah party which had been in power under the leadership of former PLO chairman Yasser Arafat.

Fatah al-Islam is an Islamist group operating out of the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon.

* Marwan Barghouti, leader of the Palestinian group Fatah

This appointment and corruption claims against Arafat's family were partially the catalyst for intense armed conflict in the streets of Gaza between Palestinian ' militants ' of the al-Aqsa Martyrs ' Brigade group and fighters loyal to Chairman Arafat's Fatah.

As-Sa ' iqa was initially the second-largest group within the PLO, after Fatah.

Masses of young Arabs joined the ranks of his group Fatah.

Kaddoumi participated in the activities of Said al-Muragha ( Abu Musa ) group, including the 1983 mutiny attempt against Yassir Arafat ( see Fatah Uprising ), but switched sides and was assigned to the Central Committee of Fatah.

However, Akhras found a group that would accept her: the Al-Aqsa Martyrs ' Brigades, a group linked to the armed branch of Fatah ( Yasser Arafat's party ), more secular than Hamas.

These clashes follow a tense three weeks in Lebanon's north, where the Lebanese Army has been battling militant group Fatah al-Islam at a Palestinian refugee camp.