Multiple reports on Tuesday night documented the eruption of massive protests attracting hundreds of people in the West Bank, under the control of the Palestinian Authority, demanding its 87-year-old leader Mahmoud Abbas step down.
Abbas’s security forces reportedly attacked the protesters – who chanted “the people want the fall of the president,” according to the Qatari network Al Jazeera – with tear gas and stun grenades. The largest such protest occurred in Ramallah, West Bank, though reports indicated that large, angry mobs organized in other major cities in the region, including Nablus, Tubas, and Jenin.
Abbas has run the Palestinian Authority since 2005. Protesters reportedly expressed frustration that the general situation for Palestinian civilians under his rule had not improved in decades and no significant challenges to his rule have surfaced. The protests…
