The Biden administration has privately asked Israel to approve an urgent request for U.S. military aid to Palestinian Authority forces, Arab, American and Israeli officials told Axios on Sunday night.
The request comes after the P.A. launched a rare counter-terror raid in Jenin, where Ramallah for years refused to act against Iranian-backed terrorist groups, in violation of its commitments under the Oslo Accords.
Ramallah launched its operation, dubbed “Defense of the Homeland,” following the Dec. 5 seizure by Hamas and Islamic Jihad of a P.A. vehicle and amid fears that terrorists in the Samaria city could attempt a coup inspired by the swift rebel takedown of Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria.
According to Arab media reports, two Arab terrorists have so far been killed by the P.A., including Yazid Jaysa, a leader in the Islamic Jihad-led Jenin Brigades who was reportedly also wanted by Israel.
The ongoing operation “is a make or break moment for the Palestinian Authority,” one official in Ramallah told Axios. “Either [you] act like a state you say you are or go back to being a militant organization.”
P.A. and U.S. officials told the outlet that P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas’s office had briefed the Biden administration and President-elect Donald Trump’s team ahead of the raid. U.S. security coordinator Gen. Mike Fenzel met with the Palestinian Authority police chiefs in preparation for the operation and went over their plans, the P.A. official claimed.
Ramallah reportedly gave Fenzel a list of equipment its forces urgently need, including ammunition, helmets, bulletproof vests, radios, night vision equipment, bomb disposal suits and armored vehicles.
The Biden administration reportedly also asked Jerusalem to release some of the P.A. tax revenues it has frozen so Ramallah can pay the salaries of its forces. The Israeli government has frozen the funds in response to the P.A.’s “pay for slay” policy in which it pays monthly stipends to terrorists and the families of slain terrorists.
Many members of Israel’s security brass support P.A. control over parts of Judea and Samaria as a “moderating force” opposed to Hamas and other Iranian-backed terror groups.
Members of Ramallah’s forces have a long history of carrying out terror attacks against Israeli soldiers and Israeli civilians. Last year, Abbas’s Fatah boasted that most of its “martyrs” had served in the P.A. Security Forces.
In addition, the Hamas terrorist organization has recruited dozens of PASF operatives, using them as terrorist combatants and for intelligence gathering, Israel’s Kan News public broadcaster reported in mid-2023.
On Sept. 2, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a “military arm” of Fatah, took responsibility for a double car bombing in Judea’s Gush Etzion region. The following day, the Brigades claimed responsibility for a drive-by shooting that killed three police officers near Hebron, also in Judea.
The P.A.-linked terrorist group vowed that it would continue to “pursue the occupier [Israel] at every intersection, alley and neighborhood, until it is expelled from our land and our holy sites, Inshallah [‘God willing’].”
