Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine الجبهة الديموقراطية لتحرير فلسطين | |
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| Leader | Nayef Hawatmeh |
| Founder | Nayef Hawatmeh Yasser Abed Rabbo[1][2] |
| Founded | 1969 |
| Split from | Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine |
| Headquarters | Damascus,Syria |
| Youth wing | Palestinian Democratic Youth Union |
| Paramilitary wing | National Resistance Brigades |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Far-left[5] |
| National affiliation | Palestine Liberation Organization[6] Democratic Alliance List |
| International affiliation | Axis of Resistance |
| Legislative Council | 1 / 132 |
| Party flag | |
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| Website | |
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TheDemocratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP;Arabic:الجبهة الديموقراطية لتحرير فلسطين,romanized: el-Jabha ed-Dīmūqrāṭiyya li-Taḥrīr Filasṭīn) is a secularPalestinianMarxist–Leninist andMaoist organization. It is also frequently referred to as theDemocratic Front, oral-Jabha al-Dīmūqrāṭiyya (الجبهة الديموقراطية). It is a member organization of thePalestine Liberation Organization,[6] theAlliance of Palestinian Forces and theDemocratic Alliance List.
The group was founded in 1969 byNayef Hawatmeh, splitting from thePopular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). It maintains a paramilitary wing, theNational Resistance Brigades. The DFLP's declared goal is to "create apeople's democraticPalestine, whereArabs andJews would live without discrimination, a statewithout classes and national oppression, a state which allows Arabs and Jews to develop their national culture."[7]
The DFLP is well-known for the 1974Ma'alot massacre, in which 25 schoolchildren and teachers were killed. Although the National Resistance Brigades have fighters based in both theWest Bank and theGaza Strip, these fighters have been engaged in relatively few military operations since theFirst Intifada, until the ongoingGaza war (2023–present) which has seen the DFLP fight alongsideHamas and otherallied Palestinian factions.[8][9]
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ThePopular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was established byGeorge Habash in 1967, in the immediate aftermath of theSix-Day War.[13] The PFLP was aMarxist-Leninist,Palestinian nationalist andPan-Arabist organization; it advocated the destruction of theState of Israel and the establishment of asecularsocialist state in Palestine.[14] By 1968, the PFLP had joined thePalestine Liberation Organization (PLO), becoming the organization's second-largest member.[13] The PFLP quickly developed a reputation as a violent terrorist group, launching a series of international terrorist attacks in order to draw attention to the situation in Palestine.[15]
TheDemocratic Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DPFLP) was established in 1969, when ideological and personal conflicts broke out within thePFLP, resulting in it fragmenting into a number of different factions.[15] The DPFLP were joined by other sections of the Palestinian left and became the third-largest faction in the PLO.[16] DPFLP leaderNayef Hawatmeh, aJordanian Christian,[verification needed] was characterized as aMaoist by his opponents in the PDFLP, who satirically referred to him as "NayefZedong".[17] As a Marxist-Leninist organization,[18] the DPFLP initially advocated for aproletarian revolution to overthrow the State of Israel and establish a "popular democratic state" alongbi-national lines.[16]
The DFLP developed a close relationship with the USSR in the early 1970s, resulting in funding from the Soviet Union and Soviet-allied Arab states (South Yemen, Algeria, Libya).[19] After 1975 the DFLP received $1 million per month from Libya.[19] The DFLP used this aid to greatly expand its military and administrative apparatus between 1978 and 1981.[19]
During the 1970s the DPFLP carried out a number of attacks, both against theIsrael Defense Forces and against civilians.[16] These attacks consisted of bombings, grenade attacks and kidnappings, the latter often carried out in order to negotiate a prisoner exchange with Israel.[20] The group's largest attack was theMa'alot massacre of 1974, an attack on an Israeli school in which 27 people were killed.[21]
Following theYom Kippur War, the DPFLP changed its name to theDemocratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and started moderating its position towards support for atwo-state solution.[16] Along withFatah andAs-Sa'iqa, the DFLP became part of the moderate faction of the PLO, which advocated for Palestinian participation in theIsraeli–Palestinian peace process. Supported byEgypt andSyria, the moderates of the PLO together represented over 80% of thePalestinian fedayeen and occupied a majority on thePalestinian National Council (PNC).[22]
The DFLP, Fatah and As-Sa'iqa submitted a proposal to the PNC that classified their goals: their strategic goal was the eventual independence of Palestine from "Zionist imperialism"; while their immediate goal was to force the State of Israel to withdraw from theGaza Strip and theWest Bank, in order to secureself-determination for the Palestinian people in those territories. The PNC adopted a similar resolution, calling for the establishment of aPalestinian National Authority in the West Bank and Gaza, while also refusing torecognise the State of Israel.[23] During the 1977 meeting of the PNC, the DFLP expressed support for the establishment of an independentState of Palestine on territory controlled by the PLO.[16]
By the outbreak of theSouthern Lebanon conflict in the mid-1980s, the DFLP stopped carrying out terrorist attacks against civilian targets and instead started conducting border raids against Israeli military positions inSouthern Lebanon.[20][24] During theFirst Intifada, the DFLP became increasingly critical of Fatah for its continued participation in theIsraeli–Palestinian peace process. This caused a rise in internal tensions, as one of the DFLP's leadersYasser Abed Rabbo expressed support forYasser Arafat's engagement in the peace process. In 1991, Rabbo was elected as the DFLP'sSecretary General and brought the organization into the peace process, causing a split within the organization.[25] Hawatmeh's faction refused to participate in the negotiations, joining with the PFLP in order to form an anti-Arafat front organization in the Syrian capital ofDamascus, where they challenged Arafat for leadership of the PLO.[26] Rabbo ultimately left the DFLP in 1993, establishing thePalestinian Democratic Union (FIDA) and going on to participate in the2000 Camp David Summit.[25]
By the time of theOslo Accords, thedissolution of the Soviet Union had resulted in a loss of funding for the DFLP. The DFLP thus lost its influence over the Palestinian independence movement, whileIslamist groups such as Hamas and thePalestinian Islamic Jihad rose to prominence.[26] In 1999, the DFLP reconciled with Fatah and considered recognising the State of Israel in the event of a peace treaty, which convinced theUnited States Department of State to drop the DFLP from itslist of designated terrorist groups.[26][27]
After a period of relative inactivity during the 1990s, the DFLP renewed armed attacks against the IDF during theSecond Intifada.[20] They carried out a number of shooting attacks against Israeli targets, such as the 25 August 2001 attack on a military base in Gaza that killed three Israeli soldiers and wounded seven others.[28][29]
On 11 September 2001, an anonymous caller claimed responsibility for theSeptember 11 attacks in theUnited States on behalf of the DFLP; but the DFLP itself denied the accusations and formally condemned the attacks.[29][30] On 25 August 2007, Palestinian militants from thePopular Resistance Committees (PRC) and DFLP attempted to enter the Israeli border town ofNetiv HaAsara from Gaza. The militants used a ladder to scale theIsrael-Gaza border and were killed by the Israel Defense Forces.[31]
The DFLP's armed wing, theNational Resistance Brigades, confirmed their participation in theOctober 7 attacks through their military spokesman Abu Khaled.[32][33] On 7 October, during the attack on Israel, they claimed to have lost three fighters in combat with the IDF, and said on 8 October that they were engaged with Israeli forces inKfar Aza,Be'eri, andKissufim.[34][35][36]
The DFLP has since fought the IDF alongside Hamas and other allied Palestinian factions in subsequent battles throughout the Gaza Strip.[8][9] On 19 October, 2025 the BBC reported about Mahmoud Amin Ya'qub al-Muhtadi, who was a member of the DFLP's armed wing . He was arrested inLouisiana, where he was a resident for the last year. He was charged with providing, attempting to provide or conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, and the fraud and misuse of a visa or other documents.[37] According to the report a few hours after the attack started on October 7, his phone connected to a cell tower near KibbutzKfar Aza, where a massacre took place, the documents said.[37][38][39]
The DFLP ran a candidate,Taysir Khalid, in the Palestinian Authoritypresidential election in 2005. He gained 3.35% of the vote.[40] It did not win any seats in the 2005 PA municipal elections.[41]
In the 2006 elections to thePalestinian Legislative Council, the Front formed a joint list calledal-Badeel (The Alternative) withPalestine Democratic Union (FIDA), thePalestinian People's Party and independents.[42][independent source needed] The list was led by the historic DFLP leaderQais Abd al-Karim (Abu Leila). It received 2.8% of the popular vote and won two of the council's 132 seats.[43]
The DFLP retains important influence within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).[44] It was traditionally the third-largest group within the PLO, afterFatah and the PFLP, and since no new elections have been held to thePNC or theExecutive Committee since 1988, the DFLP still commands important sectors within the organization. The PLO's role has diminished in later years, in favor of thePalestinian National Authority (PNA), but it is still the recognized representative of the Palestinian people, and a reactivation of the PLO's constitutional supremacy over the PNA in connection with power struggles in Palestinian society is a distinct possibility.[45]
In February 2023, the DFLP launched a party in Lebanon for the Palestinian refugees still living there, together with theLebanese Communist Party.[46]
The DFLP is believed to receive limited financial and military aid from Syria, where it is active in thePalestinianrefugee camps. The DFLP's leader, Nayif Hawatmeh lives in Syria. It provided military training forMarxist–Leninist militants of theKurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in 1980 and theSandinistas.[44]
The DFLP is not listed as aterrorist organization by theUnited States government or theUnited Nations. It was dropped from theU.S. State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations in 1999, "primarily because of the absence of terrorist activity, as defined by relevant law...during the past two years."[47]
In the late sixties and the early seventies, Maoism was so evident in the discourse of Nayef Hawatmeh, the founder of the Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PDFLP) that he was satirically dubbed Nayef Zedong.
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