As tensions rise in Judea and Samaria, i24NEWS spoke with security experts about the growing threat posed by armed Palestinian Authority forces, and the critical threat of their weapons being turned against Israel.
Lt. Col. (Res.) Maurice Hirsch, former Director of the Military Prosecution for Judea and Samaria, told i24NEWS, "We see the Palestinian police participating and instigating terror. They are the terrorists."
"And here they are building a state, with an army, this Palestinian state, which is sending representatives to train in Qatar, to train in Pakistan -- against whom they are fighting exactly?"
Ro'i Drucker, Judea and Samaria Coordinator for Regavim, explained, "Every road in Judea and Samaria is under siege, and they are just waiting for the day they get their orders. The Palestinian Authority, for years, has been conducting a deep process of occupying the area, controlling all the roads and the main buildings in Judea and Samaria."
"Their weapons have been trained against us since the day the Palestinian police were created, since the day they received weapons. You can remember the demonstrations at the Western Wall, right? In 1996, just days after the signing of the Oslo Accords, [late Palestinian Authority leader Yasser] Arafat commands the officers in the Palestinian Authority to "fight the Zionist enemy because they are operating in our sacred lands".
"And from then on, from the first day that the Palestinian Authority received weapons, it turned them against us. The story does not end here, but is a question of when this event will be used against us."
Hirsch explained, "I was here in this division for five years, 1998-2003. The first two years, were peacekeeping, the Oslo Accords, the implementation of these things."
"What did the vision of peace bring us?" he asked. "Tens of thousands were killed, Israelis were murdered, thousands, and also on the Palestinian side, people were killed. So what, are we going to continue on the same path?"
Drucker added, "In the Oslo Accords it was about 12,000 weapons that the Palestinian Authority could hold, for the use of law enforcement. Since then the numbers grew, we know that today, the Palestinian Authority security system has about 65,000 people on salary."
"That is, even if not all of them are officers, fighters, you can say that at least 30,000-35,000 are trained soldiers. They have several places in Judea and Samaria, in the north, the main place is the General Artillery University in Jericho. It is a complete training base, like the IDF.
"They learn how to occupy positions and how to occupy settlements. They train in the north, in the open area. They train on artillery fire, they train on sniping, invading, attacking, they train on forces that operate at night, with means of night vision, aiming at civilians.
"I don't think that a police force needs all of this," he emphasized.
Maj. Gen. (res.) Eitan Dangot, former Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), told i24NEWS, "The military's readiness for their turning their weapons on us is a capability that must be thorough and long-term, including how to deal with it, to differentiate and determine priorities and decide what goals are most necessary."
"We also defused a few myths in the light of operations we carried out recently, and there are no words to describe the destruction of terrorist enclaves, especially in northern Samaria."
Last year, a full 150 Palestinian Authority police officers took their weapons to carry out terror attacks - a hint of what could happen in the event of a large-scale attack, with tens of thousands of hostile "police officers" operating.
"How can we have let this grow from 12,000 people to what is now estimated as 67,000 to 70,000 fighters?" Hirsch demanded.
Drucker noted, "The writings of the security systems express the dream of a land "from the river to the sea". They have a routine where every Friday that they "bless Palestine". Every day is dedicated to another city in Palestine."
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