Members of the Palestinian Authority Security Forces on December 15, 2020 near Nablus, in an occupied West Bank.Illustration photo Jaafar Ashtiyeh / AFP
At a time when the United States is calling for a bailout and reform of President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority (PA) so that it can manage the post-conflict period between Hamas and Israel in Gaza, the question of the capabilities of the Palestinian security forces poses a problem. In a Washington Post article published on Feb. 5, journalists from the American daily recount these challenges, after visiting a US-funded training center for PA forces in Jericho.
"Despite two decades of reform, the [Palestinian] security forces remain chronically underfunded and largely unpopular, ill-equipped to take on the massive responsibilities envisioned by their Western backers," wrote Miriam Berger, Sufian Taha and Loveday Morris, after their February visit to the "Palestinian Authority Central Training Institute" which opened in 1994.
The current site, one of a dozen training facilities, was built in 2008, at the very beginning of US efforts to rebuild, train and fund the force, the US daily says.
"As we strive for peace, Gaza and the West Bank should be reunited under a single governance structure, led by a revitalized Palestinian Authority," said US President Joe Biden in an op-ed published by The Washington Post in November.
On Feb. 26, President Abbas accepted the resignation of the government, announced the same day, at a time when behind-the-scenes negotiations were intensifying to reform the Palestinian political leadership in the context of the "post-war" situation in Gaza, AFP reported. In response, the United States welcomed the reform process within the PA. Since fratricidal clashes in June 2007, the Palestinian leadership has been divided between Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited power in the West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967, and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip.
"Palestinian security forces cannot intervene to stop Israeli settler violence or military raids. Nor are they welcome in some Palestinian towns, where militant groups have become the de facto authorities," noted The Post. "Today, members can't even count on a regular salary," added the daily, which points out that the PA has paid its employees less than half their salaries since Oct. 7, 2023, due to an impasse over tax revenues with Israel.
"The Palestinian Authority is not ready to go to Gaza"
Even ammunition is in short supply. Speaking anonymously, the colonel who runs the training center, The Post explained that for the past year, there have been no live bullets in the facility. "Some groups are sent to Jordan to train with real weapons," the colonel explained.
Strengthening Palestinian security forces through the State Department would require a new mandate, a Western diplomat told the paper on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues. "The Palestinian Authority is not ready to go to Gaza and won't be anytime soon," the diplomat added. "I don't think it has the manpower to do it, nor the will, nor the knowledge of the Gaza Strip.
"From the outset, these leaders [of the PA in Ramallah] and their American backers have been concerned with the functionality and effectiveness of the security forces to contain any confrontation or resistance to the PA, not with public legitimacy," said Alaa Tartir, senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
The irony of the situation
But "none of this is for the security of the Palestinian people," Tartir added. "And therein lies the irony ... it [the Palestinian security force] was reformed to ensure stability, security coordination and Israel's security in the first place."
"Now 35,500 strong, this force is often openly at odds with the public it is supposed to serve. Its members have suppressed Palestinian demonstrations against the war in Gaza," wrote The Post.
The conflict, which began on Oct. 7, was triggered by an unprecedented attack on Israel by Hamas commandos infiltrating from Gaza, resulting in the deaths of at least 1,160 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data. In retaliation, Israel vowed to "annihilate" Hamas and launched a vast military offensive in the Gaza Strip, which has claimed more than 30,717 lives in Gaza, the vast majority of them civilians, since Oct. 7, according to the latest death toll from the Gazan Ministry of Health.
"After receiving more than a billion dollars in foreign funding, the PA security forces are not what they were under Yasser Arafat's reign," explains Ghaith al-Omari, a fellow at the Washington Institute think tank and former adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team, quoted by The Post."The problem lies in the politicization of the leadership of the security forces," he said. "Given the current poor state of the Palestinian Authority, it's very difficult to see how it can do the job of security," the expert concluded.
Read the full Washington Post article here.