The recruits deployed methodically, moved in and arrested the attackers without firing a shot.
The training director, Colonel, looked on proudly. He spoke on the condition that he be identified according to his rank to discuss sensitive issues.
“As you can see, we are very professional here,” he told The Washington Post last month at the Palestinian Authority’s Central Training Institute. “We're really trying.”
Washington Post reporters were given rare access to the training center, to get a look at the challenges facing Palestinian security forces — which Washington sees as key to its plans to strengthen a Palestinian Authority that could help stabilize Gaza after the war. Despite two decades of reforms, the security forces remain chronically underfunded, widely unpopular, and ill-equipped to shoulder the enormous responsibilities perceived by their Western backers.
“As we strive for peace, Gaza and the West Bank must be reunited under a single governance structure, ultimately under a renewed Palestinian Authority,” President Biden wrote in a November op-ed. In the months that followed, American envoys shuttled between Ramallah, Tel Aviv and Arab capitals, trying to bring the president's vision to life.
But the Palestinian Authority and its security forces are already struggling to maintain order in the West Bank. Under the weight of Israeli occupation, the force operates in an ever-shrinking area. Its members are subject to the same Israeli restrictions as their Palestinian brothers, while they are viewed by many in their communities as oppressive subcontractors of Israel.
Palestinian security forces cannot intervene to stop Israeli settler violence or military raids. They are not welcome in some Palestinian towns and cities, where armed groups have become the de facto authorities.
These days, members can't even count on a fixed salary.
The Palestinian Authority has paid employees less than half of their salaries since October 7 due to a tax revenue crisis with Israel. The colonel said that over the past year, the center did not have live ammunition for training because Israeli authorities rejected import requests. Selected groups are sent to Jordan to train in the use of real weapons.
Palestinian and Western officials said major efforts would be needed to expand and train security forces at the level required for Gaza — and to gain political approval from the Israeli government, which openly opposes the plan.
A Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues, said strengthening Palestinian security forces through the Foreign Ministry would require a new mandate.
“The Palestinian Authority is not ready to go to Gaza and will not be anytime soon,” the diplomat said. “I don’t think they have the numbers to do it, or the will, or the knowledge about Gaza.”
The colonel (45 years old) comes from a family of Palestinian refugees. Born into exile in Lebanon, he returned with his family to the West Bank after the Oslo peace accords of the mid-1990s, brokered by Washington, established the Palestinian Authority to govern a future Palestinian state. Under the agreement, the authority was allowed to have a limited security force instead of the army.
The colonel devoted his career to serving the unrecognized State of Palestine and trying to improve its security forces. “This is my country,” he said. “it's my duty.”
After the Palestinian Authority was expelled from Gaza in 2007, its Western backers invested heavily in reforming its bloated and disorganized units and transforming them into a disciplined force capable of effectively coordinating security with Israel. Over the years, as hopes for a two-state solution faded, many Palestinians came to view the force as an arm of the Israeli occupation, or a private militia subordinate to their increasingly authoritarian leaders in Ramallah.
Alaa Tartir, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Center for International Peace, said that from the beginning, these leaders and their American supporters were concerned with “the function and effectiveness of the security forces in containing any confrontation or response” to the Palestinian Authority’s rule, not public legitimacy. Research Institute.
But he said: “All of this is not for the security of the Palestinian people.” “And this is the ironic part. … It was fixed in order to bring stability and security coordination and Israeli security first.”
Its membership now numbers 35,500, and the force is often publicly at odds with the public it is supposed to serve. Its members suppressed Palestinian protests against the war in Gaza. It has arrested alleged members of Hamas and critics of the Palestinian Authority. When Israeli forces raid Palestinian towns and cities, Palestinian security forces are called upon to do so stay inside.
“If I quit my job there will be chaos,” the colonel said. “No matter what challenges I face.”
The colonel said that the Jericho Training Center was opened for the first time in 1994, and it has a sister branch in Gaza. The current site, one of about 10 training facilities, was built in 2008, in the early days of U.S. efforts to rebuild, train and finance the force.
In 2005, Washington and seven allied countries established the Jerusalem-based Office of the United States Security Coordinator (USSC) for Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Initially, the American Coordinating Council funded Palestinian training programs at Jordanian military academies, away from the pressures of local politics; Over time, more programs shifted to the West Bank.
The State Department, speaking on behalf of the USSC, declined to comment on Washington's training plans.
The numerous branches of the Palestinian security forces — including the National Security Forces, the Presidential Guard, Preventive Security, and the General Intelligence Services — report to Mahmoud Abbas, the 88-year-old president of the Palestinian Authority, who has not held elections since 2006.
On February 26, he accepted the resignation of the Palestinian prime minister and his entire cabinet — the first step in a larger change supported by Washington and Arab countries — but there are doubts about the extent of Netanyahu's resignation. If it exists, Abbas will agree to give up power.
Abbas and his predecessor, the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, are depicted together in a mural overlooking the training centre. One recent morning, a new group of Customs Police recruits passed by, almost in unison. They wore matching outfits with mismatched socks and sneakers.
They chanted, “We miss the darkness,” a verse by the late Syrian poet Najib Al-Rayes. “It won't be long before the night gives way to the glorious dawn.”
Inside, some students study English and Hebrew. Others attend lectures on Palestinian criminal procedures and simulations of interagency emergency responses. Since October 7, internationally-led exercises on topics such as gender rights and leadership in high-risk operations have been halted, the colonel said.
The center can accommodate only 900 trainees at a time. He added that foreign-funded plans to expand its capacity are still ongoing, but have been delayed.
On a windswept road, the center's 140,000-square-foot shooting range has been silent since February 2023. The colonel said 400,000 rounds of training ammunition are in Jordan awaiting Israeli import permission.
COGAT, the Israeli military agency responsible for the Palestinian territories, did not respond to a request for comment.
“How can I maintain security with an officer who is not well trained?” said another colonel in charge of the firing range, who also spoke on the condition that he be identified by his rank. How can he be accurate in the field and handle weapons without fear?
Having received more than $1 billion in foreign funding, the Palestinian security forces are a “different ball game” than they were under Arafat, said Ghaith al-Omari, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Research and a former adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team. .
He continued: “The problem is the politicization of the leadership of the security forces.” “Given how bad the situation of the Palestinian Authority is right now, it is very difficult to see how they can perform security work.”
“A very big challenge”
From his office in Ramallah, Palestinian security services spokesman Talal Dweikat acknowledged the public’s lack of confidence in the Palestinian security forces. But he said the issue was a systemic issue.
“When I am in a city with my security forces, and the Israeli army comes in broad daylight – and enters Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah and Hebron – is this not a weakening of the authority? Is this not an expansion of the gap between it and the people?
Since Hamas's deadly attack on southern Israel on October 7, Israeli forces and settlers have killed more than 400 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to the United Nations, many in raids targeting militant groups rooted among refugees in the region. Camps.
The already fragile economy in the West Bank is on the verge of collapse.
Israel has withheld the monthly tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, which traditionally sends about half the money to Hamas-run Gaza to pay salaries and services. Dwikat said that the besieged administration in Ramallah had already been unable to pay full salaries for two years. In the first three months of the war, payments were reduced further.
“This is a very significant challenge that hinders your ability to recruit new recruits,” he said, adding that supervisors turned a blind eye to employees taking on second jobs.
“If they are struggling now, just imagine adding 10,000 more people to the payroll,” the Western diplomat said.
For its part, the Palestinian leadership categorically rejected any role in Gaza that is not directly linked to the establishment of a Palestinian state. Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a post-war plan that envisioned indefinite Israeli military control of the Strip.
Encouraged by the United States, Palestinian officials have dusted off the rosters of their old security forces in Gaza, 17 years after Hamas violently ousted the Authority from the Strip. Of the 26,000 names, only 2,000 to 3,000 are believed to be able to become fit for service.
Of these, it is not clear how many are still alive.
The colonel said his forces were ready to train in Gaza – but on their own terms.
“If I have the equipment, arrangements, political decisions and logistics, we can discuss it,” he said. “If we have orders [by the Palestinian president] To go, we go. “Will it happen?” he laughed. “Neither Biden nor anyone can answer.”
Morris reported from Jerusalem.
