Hajj Ismail Jaber (Military and Governorate Affairs Adviser)

Hajj Ismail Jaber, born in Deir al-Balah (Gaza) is a member of Fatah’s Central Committee (FCC) since 2016 and a senior advisor on military and governorate affairs in the Office of the President. He was previously the head of the National Security Forces (NSF) in the West Bank from 1994 to 2005. He resigned due to rising intra-Fatah violence in the West Bank. Jaber then served as deputy head of the General Intelligence Service (GIS) – under Tawfiq Tirawi. In 2009, he was appointed by Mahmoud Abbas as a senior adviser on military and governorate affairs. He stood as a candidate for deputy chairman of the FCC in 2017 against Mahmoud Aloul. According to a WINEP profile, Jaber “joined Fatah in Syria after 1967, traveling to China for training and then returning to Jordan to help establish guerrilla bases. Jabr was subsequently a senior PLA officer in southern Lebanon in the 1970s and early 1980s—rising to command all forces in the region—and in Iraq between 1984 and 1994.”