The day is fast approaching when the IDF and the defense establishment will have no choice but to reexamine their working assumption that the PA (Palestinian Authority) is a partner that stands beside Israel in the fight against terrorism. The recent terrorist attacks in Judea & Samaria and the unceasing war that the IDF is waging against the terrorist organizations there have underscored a worrying fact: the distinction between Hamas and Fatah terrorism is becoming more and more difficult as each day goes by. Fatah and its al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades carry out terrorist attacks and are partners in acts of terrorism in general. Many senior Fatah officials too, including district faction secretaries who are inextricably linked with the PA, are backing Fatah's involvement in terrorism.
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Only a few days ago, we were presented with an additional clear illustration of the fusion between terrorist organizations, when it emerged that the fathers of four of the nine Palestinian terrorists killed in Jenin and Tulkarm serve as officers in the PASF (Palestinian Authority Security Forces), and that two of the six terrorists killed in the Israeli air strike in Jenin were members of Fatah. The rest of those killed were identified as Hamas operatives.
Only a week ago, during IDF operational activity, terrorists opened fire on an army unit located at the northern entrance to Jericho. They fired from the Istiqlal University, an institution that provides training for Palestinian police officers and also serves as the main training base for the PASF rank and file (reported on Channel 14). The fact that this specific location was used to fire on IDF soldiers should sound the alarm bells for all those, both in Israel and the US, who still refuse to reevaluate the cooperation with the PASF.
Not far from the settlements of Telem and Adura in the western Mt. Hebron area, IDF reservists recently uncovered in the vicinity of the village of Tarkumiya, what they described as "preparations for a terrorist tunnel", only a few hundred meters from Telem. Though the IDF Spokesperson identified this excavation as a cesspit, the Jewish residents in the area are extremely concerned that this merely serves as a cover for something completely different.
In the community of Bat Hefer, just 'a stone's throw' to the east of which lies the Palestinian village of Shweika, the local residents have heard sounds of excavation work. Shweika is well known to the residents of Bat Hefer, as in the past shots fired from there have resulted in hits on houses in the Jewish community.
In Kokhav Ya'ir–Tzur Yig'al, the town that lies right on the Green Line, residents have been complaining about the noise of people digging a tunnel and have reported tremors felt in their own homes. Evidence has already been found in Jenin and Tulkarm of tunnel infrastructures designed to try and copy the Gazan model.
Above ground; however, the situation is much clearer: the wave of mourning announcements by PA local government heads, mayors, and heads of councils, following the assassination of the Hamas arch-terrorist Saleh al-Arouri, provides us with the clearest possible indication of how the land lies and possibly which way the tide is turning. After the targeting of al-Arouri, Jamal Hawil, a member of the Fatah council, declared that "all the factions of the Palestinian uprising that are subordinate to Allah alone... will now speak to the criminal Zionist entity only with their rifle bullets and missiles."
Jibril Rajoub, a well-known senior PA official, phoned Ismail Haniyeh to express his condolences and published a photo of him together with al-Arouri. The PA prime minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, condemned the killing of al-Arouri, while the Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus described al-Arouri as "the man who ignited the revolution and the entire West Bank" and the "architect of the Al-Aqsa Flood'" (the name given to the October 7 massacre by Hamas).
Since IDF Operation Guardian of the Walls, more than 100 members of the PASF have been killed while they were engaged in attempts to carry out terrorist attacks, and in 2023, Palestinian policemen and PASF members carried out more than 100 terrorist attacks and attempted attacks. A similar picture arises in relation to counter-terrorist activity and arrests too: it is not only members of Hamas and the PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad) who have been killed or arrested by the IDF, but also hundreds of Fatah members along with them. More and more joint terrorist cells shared by organizations that are normally adversaries, such as Fatah, Hamas, PIJ, and the PFLP, are being uncovered, and this really requires a serious rethink as to our relations with the PA and its security forces.
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