The Palestinian Authority has lost U.S. funding for its security forces following President Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day executive order that froze all foreign assistance.
Brig. Gen. Anwar Rajab, a spokesman for the security forces, said the U.S. was considered a “big donor to the PA projects” that included security training for the forces, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.
The U.S. Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs provided approximately $1.1 billion in civilian security and justice assistance to support the Palestinian Authority’s security forces since 2007, the State Department, which oversees the bureau, said last year, according to the Post.
A former Israeli official who spoke to the Post on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue said the security forces were “not affected in any meaningful way” by the freeze and that “other donors have committed to make up the shortfall.”
But the freeze has led to cuts in some training, a colonel at the authority’s Central Training Institute for security forces told the Post on Tuesday. He spoke on the condition of anonymity according to his office’s protocol.
The colonel said a meeting planned with U.S. officials this month to assess the authority’s operation targeting terrorists at the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank — which stopped after Israeli forces invaded last month — was postponed and has not been rescheduled.
The colonel also said the U.S. was funding the construction of a virtual shooting range, which the Central Training Institute needed because Israel prohibits bullets being imported for live-fire training sessions. Although the project was almost completed, the institute is seeking alternative funding.
Trump’s first administration stopped all direct aid to the Palestinian Authority except the funding for training and reform for the security forces. The security forces are trained through the Jerusalem-based Office of the Security Coordinator, which the U.S. and various countries run, according to the Post.
The U.S. for years has viewed the Palestinian Authority forces as crucial to Israel’s security. The Fatah-led government administers Palestinian enclaves in the West Bank, and it had governed the Gaza Strip before it was pushed out by Iranian-backed Hamas following elections in 2006.
The authority is struggling to control a new generation of Palestinian terrorism in the West Bank that’s centered in the territory’s northern refugee camps and draws support from widespread frustration with the aging authority leadership, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, 89, according to the Post.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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