BICOM

Analyst Avi Issacharoff says that Israeli and Palestinian Authority (PA) officials met last week in order to reaffirm security cooperation between them.

Writing in the Times of Israel, he says that high-level intelligence cooperation is taking place between the two sides, as both Israeli and Palestinian leaders fear the prospect of the West Bank falling into extreme Islamist hands. PA leaders have threatened to end security cooperation with Israel and it was recently reported that Israeli ministers were discussing the possible collapse of the PA and its implications.

However, last month Majed Faraj, director of the PA’s General Intelligence Service highlighted the importance of security cooperation with Israel in an interview with a US-based publication, Defense News. He claimed that PA security and intelligence forces had prevented 200 attacks against Israelis, confiscated weapons and arrested about 100 Palestinians since October. The near-daily attacks by Palestinians on Israelis during this period have left at least 30 Israelis dead.

However, on at least three occasions, members of the PA security services have actively participated in the violent attacks on Israelis. Most recently, on Sunday evening, two Palestinians opened fire with automatic weapons at Israeli border policeman at the Damascus Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City. Both were killed in the ensuing gun battle. It was later revealed that one of the terrorists, 20-year-old West Bank resident Omar Ahmed Amru was a policeman in the PA security services.

Meanwhile, Israel’s Shin Bet security service said yesterday that Jamal Abu Lel, the head of the Tanzim terrorist organisation had been arrested. The Tanzim group is aligned to the Fatah faction of PA President Mahmoud Abbas. 48-year-old Abu Lel is a resident of East Jerusalem, but ran the organisation from Kalandiya, near Ramallah, where he used it to funnel money and direct shooting attacks against Israelis.