Fatḥ also has religious significance in that it is the name of the 48th sura (chapter) of the Quran which, according to major Muslim commentators, details the story of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah.

[32][33] The Fatah movement was founded in 1959 by members of the Palestinian diaspora, principally by professionals working in the Persian Gulf States, especially Kuwait (then a British protectorate) where the founders Salah Khalaf, Khalil al-Wazir, Yasser Arafat resided.

[34] According to the BBC, "Mr Arafat took over as chairman of the executive committee of the PLO in 1969, a year that Fatah is recorded to have carried out 2,432 guerrilla attacks on Israel.

Knowledge of the operation was available well ahead of time, and the government of Jordan (as well as a number of Fatah commandos) informed Arafat of Israel's large-scale military preparations.

As Israel's forces intensified their campaign, the Jordanian Army became involved, causing the Israelis to retreat in order to avoid a full-scale war.

They set up roadblocks, publicly humiliated Jordanian police forces, molested women and levied illegal taxes – all of which Arafat either condoned or ignored.

[39][40] In 1970, the Jordanian government moved to regain control over its territory, and the next day,[dubious – discuss] King Hussein declared martial law.

A large group of guerrilla fighters led by Fatah field commander Abu Ali Iyad held out the Jordanian Army's offensive in the northern city of Ajlun until they were decisively defeated in July 1971.

Abu Ali Iyad was executed and surviving members of his commando force formed the Black September Organization, a splinter group of Fatah.

Succumbing to pressure from PLO sub-groups such as the PFLP, DFLP and the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), Fatah aligned itself with the communist and Nasserist Lebanese National Movement (LNM).

He sent his army, along with the Syrian-backed Palestinian factions of as-Sa'iqa and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) led by Ahmad Jibril to fight alongside the Christian forces against the PLO and the LNM.

[43] Phalangist forces killed twenty-six Fatah trainees on a bus in April 1975, marking the official start of the 15-year-long Lebanese civil war.

In 1976, with strategic planning help from the Lebanese Army, the alliance of Christian militias, spearheaded by the National Liberal Party of former President Cammille Chamoun militant branch, the noumour el ahrar (NLP Tigers), took a pivotal refugee camp in the Eastern part of Beirut, the Tel al-Zaatar camp, after a six-month siege, also known as Tel al-Zaatar massacre in which hundreds perished.

A force of nearly a dozen Fatah fighters landed their boats near a major coastal road connecting the city of Haifa with Tel Aviv-Yafo.

Beirut was soon besieged and bombarded by the IDF;[43] to end the siege, the US and European governments brokered an agreement guaranteeing safe passage for Arafat and Fatah – guarded by a multinational force – to exile in Tunis.

Despite the exile, many Fatah commanders and fighters remained in Lebanon, and they faced the War of the Camps in the 1980s in their fight with the Shia Amal Movement and also in connection with internal schisms within the Palestinian factions.

"[49] In December 2005, jailed Intifada leader Marwan Barghouti broke ranks with the party and announced that he had formed a new political list to run in the elections called the al-Mustaqbal ("The Future"), mainly composed of members of Fatah's "Young Guard."

These younger leaders have repeatedly expressed frustration with the entrenched corruption in the party, which has been run by the "Old Guard" who returned from exile in Tunisia following the Oslo Accords.

Al-Mustaqbal was to campaign against Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian legislative election, presenting a list including Mohammed Dahlan, Kadoura Fares, Samir Mashharawi and Jibril Rajoub.

[50] 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.

Several of them gained their positions through the patronage of Yasser Arafat, who balanced above the different factions, and the era after his death in 2004 has seen increased infighting among these groups, who jockey for influence over future development, the political line, funds, and constituencies.

One founding member, Faruq al-Qaddumi (Abu Lutf), continues to openly oppose the post-Oslo arrangements and has intensified his campaign for a more hardline position from exile in Tunis.

The younger generations of Fatah, especially within the militant al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, have been more prone to splits, and a number of lesser networks in Gaza and the West Bank have established themselves as either independent organizations or joined Hamas.

[citation needed] Saudi King Abdullah told the delegates that divisions among the Palestinians were more damaging to their cause of an independent state than the Israeli "enemy".

[58] Israeli deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon said the conference was a "serious blow to peace" and "was another lost opportunity for the Palestinian leadership to adopt moderate views.

The November 1959 edition of Fatah's underground journal Filastinuna Nida al-Hayat indicated that the movement was motivated by the status of the Palestinian refugees in the Arab world:Armed struggle – as manifested in the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine and the military role of Palestinian fighters under the leadership of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War – was central to Fatah's initial ideology of how to liberate Palestine.

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.