‘Israel can’t trust terror-supporting PA for security,’ say local leaders in Judea, Samaria

 The Biden administration has urged Israel to support the PA in its counter-terror operation with military aid and other assistance.

By World Israel News Staff

Local leaders in Judea and Samaria are expressing concern that Israel is repeating the defense mistakes that led to the October 7th terrorist onslaught by trusting the Palestinian Authority to act against terror in the region.

In recent days, fearing a coup by Hamas, the PA has stepped up its efforts to destroy terror cells in its territory. The Biden administration has urged Israel to support the PA in its counter-terror operation with military aid and other assistance.

“This operation is a make-or-break moment for the Palestinian Authority,” one Palestinian official told Axios.

However, in an open letter to Israel’s Security Cabinet, the heads of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria warned that the Palestinian Authority is inherently hostile to Israel, stressing that the body could turn its weapons against Israeli civilians.

“It is illogical to leave the issue of maintaining our security in the hands of the Palestinian Authority,” they wrote. “With one hand, the PA is supposedly fighting terrorism, and with the other, it is financing terrorism and paying salaries to terrorists. In order to clean up terrorism, [Israel] needs to fight it.”

The letter emphasized that “the Palestinian police…are an army for all intents and purposes, armed with automatic weapons and undergoing military training.”

The politicians said that the IDF operations in PA-controlled areas in Judea and Samaria must mirror counter-terror efforts in the Gaza Strip.

PA civilians must be evacuated from populated areas where there is terror infrastructure, and then troops should move in and clean up, they wrote.

Additionally, the IDF’s top brass must place Judea and Samaria’s security as a top priority for the military.

“Three weeks before October 7, we warned the authorities about the potential for a [mass attack on civilians] in Judea and Samaria. We said that the threat was not lone wolf terrorists, but [full-scale] war. They laughed at us and called us delusional,” Israel Gantz, head of the Binyamin Regional Council, told Hebrew-language outlet Walla.

“In the end, what we warned about happened in Gaza-adjacent communities…. We must clear the area in order to protect the lives of the citizens of the State of Israel. We need to create 100% security – not 99% and not 95%,” Gantz said. “We do not have the privilege of making the same mistake again as we did on October 7th.”