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Israeli security officials met with their counterparts from the Palestinian Authority Wednesday night in Jerusalem to discuss the fate of security coordination between the two sides, Palestinian media reported.
The Israeli delegation reportedly delivered its response to a
proposal presented last February by Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas about the fate of security arrangements between the two
sides.
The Palestinian news site Safa cited a PA official who said “the results of the meeting will become clear within a few days.”
Abu Yousef, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, told Safa that
the committee is set to meet next Sunday with Abbas to discuss a number
of issues, among them the fate of agreements between the PA and Israel.
Officials in Israel and the PA have expressed interest in continuing
security coordination, even as diplomatic ties have withered amid the
ongoing wave of violence and Palestinian terrorism.
However, senior Palestinian political officials have said behind
closed doors that the PA has on several occasions warned Israeli
officials from the Shin Bet security service, the Coordinator of
Government Activities in the Territories, and the IDF that security
coordination between the two sides could not continue as long as the
army operates in the West Bank’s Area A territories, which are under
Palestinian security control.
The Times of Israel reported recently that the Palestinian Authority
rejected an Israeli offer presented in late February to end IDF
operations in Ramallah and Jericho as a first step toward enhancing
security coordination, which would later extend to other areas in the
West Bank.
Sources speaking to The Times of Israel, Palestinian sources said the
Palestinian Authority had decided to reject the Israeli proposal as it
did not provide concrete steps toward ending the IDF’s military presence
in all major West Bank cities.
The sources added that while Israeli officials were skeptical of the
PA’s threats to end security cooperation, the Palestinian governing body
was seriously weighing such an option if its demands were not met.
Both sides see the security cooperation as key to keeping Hamas and
other terror groups that could threaten Fatah’s control of the PA in
check. However, the collapse of the PA would effectively spell the end
of any security coordination and likely spiral into a breakout of
violence in the West Bank, Israeli defense officials maintain.
Israeli officials have warned that the PA may be on the verge of
collapse due to the lack of a successor to the octogenarian Abbas, an
unwillingness to hold elections for the presidency, and a surplus of
weapons in the West Bank, which could allow policemen, security forces
and others with illegal weapons to stage a coup.
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