What are the Palestinian security forces?

The Palestinian security forces include several branches — among them the National Security Forces, Presidential Guard, Preventive Security and General Intelligence Services — that report to Washington-backed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. They operate in pockets of the West Bank under the authority’s nominal control. The 1994 Gaza-Jericho agreement called for the creation of a limited, internal Palestinian police force in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. At the time, the first Palestinian uprising had just ended and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had agreed to a Palestinian government without a military in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Arafat headed the newly established Palestinian Authority and incorporated into its security forces members of his guerrilla Palestinian Liberation Army and loyalists from his Fatah party, write Neri Zilber and Ghaith al-Omari in a report on the organization’s history . Over time, Arafat further expanded the security sector in part to crackdown on critics and rivals such as the Islamist extremist group Hamas. By 2000, Palestinians remained stateless and a second, more violent intifada broke out. Members of the Palestinian security forces openly battled Israeli forces who, in the spring of 2002, temporarily retook West Bank cities such as Jenin and Ramallah, where the authority is headquartered. Arafat died in 2004 and Abbas, a champion of nonviolence unlike his predecessor, took over.

What support has the United States provided?

After the anarchy of the second intifada, the United States and Europe pushed for security and anti-corruption reforms. In 2005, the State Department set up the U.S. Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Territory (USSC) to help develop the Palestinian forces and security cooperation with Israel. But in 2006, Hamas won parliamentary elections. Following months of escalating internal fighting, Hamas in June of that year ousted the Palestinian Authority and its forces from Gaza and seized control. After the split, the Palestinian Authority consolidated control in the West Bank and deepened security ties with Israel. In 2007, the United States began training security personnel in Jordan, in addition to providing other funding, weapons and assistance. Efforts to reform the security sector and rein in militias were by some measures successful, said al-Omari, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a U.S. think thank. “In terms of training, logistics, overall running they have really improved” with the help of the USCC, he said. “The problem is with the overall standing of the Palestinian Authority, and that has really worsened significantly.” But Tahani Mustafa, an analyst at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, said professionalization was intended “to depoliticize the security forces … to ensure that you would not have a security force that would fight against Israelis again.” Meanwhile, the campaigns to reduce the proliferation of weapons, she said, were applied haphazardly. At 86, Abbas has used the security forces to deepen his authoritarian grip, crack down on opponents and reward loyalists. In 2021, Palestinian Authority security personnel beat to death anti-corruption dissident Nizar Banat. The following year, New York-based Human Rights Watch accused Palestinian authorities of “systematically mistreating and torturing Palestinians in detention.” (The report concerned both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, which holds power in the Gaza Strip.) Adding to the volatility, Abbas has refused to designate a preferred replacement. Facing a looming succession crisis, current and past security chiefs are consequently focused on consolidating Palestinian, Israeli and Western patrons for the post-Abbas era instead of tackling the growing unrest, Mustafa said.

How do the Palestinian security forces interact with Israel?

Along with countering armed militias, its rival Hamas and other Palestinian Authority critics, the Palestinian forces coordinate on security issues with Israel. These bilateral arrangements takes various forms, including counterterrorism operations, intelligence sharing, coordinating the safe return of Israeli citizens who enter Palestinian Authority areas, and military operations in Palestinian cities, such as Jenin. For the last year, the Jenin refugee camp has been the epicenter of a growing Palestinian resistance movement targeted by deadly Israeli raids — and has effectively become a no-go zone for Palestinian security forces. In the 90s, Israel rarely raided Area A of the West Bank — where Palestinian Authority forces are supposed to be responsible for security, according to Zilber and al-Omari. In theory, Israel would only operate if Palestinian forces failed to apprehend wanted individuals, or to address an immediate threat and intelligence couldn’t be shared. Today, the military often goes in first. Israel says its operations stop militants and thwart attacks against Israelis. Palestinians say these incursions lead to further violence and rights violations. Though not fighting, Palestinian Authority security forces also arrest alleged militants: Last week, they detained other fighters trying to reach the Jenin camp, Mustafa said. Abbas has repeatedly threatened to cut security coordination and occasionally frozen it. Nonetheless, the relationship continues. If the authority “ever severs security coordination, then their very existence comes into question — and the PA will not collapse itself,” al-Omari said. The Israeli security establishment’s long-standing consensus to shore up the Palestinian Authority, however, is being challenged by extremist members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet, such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich , who has openly called for dismantling it.

What support do the Palestinian security forces have in the West Bank?

Many Palestinians view the Palestinian Authority and its forces as collaborators enabling Israel’s occupation, repression and displacement. In March, for the first time since the authority’s formation, a majority of Palestinians said its collapse or dissolution was in their interest, according to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research , a Ramallah-based pollster. In June, PCPSR found that 66 percent of Palestinians in the West Bank supported the formation of armed groups outside of the security forces’ control. But the Palestinian leadership has committed to stay the course. “If we give up security coordination there will be chaos here,” Abbas told Israeli media in 2016. “There will be rifles, and explosions and armed militants popping up everywhere and rushing at Israel. Without the coordination, a bloody intifada would break out.” During the Jenin operation, some security force members took up arms against Israel, Mustafa said. “It’s not uncommon,” she said. “There’s always been that disconnect between the upper tier of the security forces and those at the lower ranks. And the lower ranks have always joined in armed resistance struggles.” The growing violence is likely to only worsen this dissonance, al-Omari said. If “your own people are burning tires and throwing stones at you and are calling you a traitor, at a certain point you would lose morale,” he said. “Having a strong, reformed, effective security force is a path toward liberation, toward independence,” he said. “Right now, it’s very hard to make that case to these younger groups.”

Middle East

What to know about Palestinian security forces and their role in West Bank

By Miriam Berger

July 11, 2023 at 7:42 p.m. EDT

A suspected Palestinian militant fires into the air while attending the funeral of two men killed in an Israeli raid in Nablus, West Bank, on Friday. (Alaa Badarneh/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

7 min

As Israel carried out its largest military operation in two decades in the occupied West Bank last week, the security forces of the Palestinian Authority, which nominally administers parts of the territory, followed orders and stayed out of the fight.

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But days later, when they did appear, it was to fire tear gas at mourners who had pushed Palestinian officials out of a crowd of tens of thousands of people who had gathered to bury members of armed groups killed during the two-day Israeli ground and air operation.

The Palestinian security forces are among the last threads holding together the Oslo peace accords, which — three decades after the agreements were signed — are teetering on the brink of collapse as expectations of another uprising grow amid rising Palestinian disenchantment and as Israel’s far-right government escalates a crackdown on armed groups. As the situation deteriorates, the unrest has challenged the position of the Palestinian security forces, long essential to efforts by Israel and its allies to keep order, but increasingly undermined by Israeli raids and facing mounting antipathy from many Palestinians under their jurisdiction.

Here’s what to know about the Palestinian security forces and how they fit into the violence unfolding in the West Bank.

What is happening in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, and why now?