The Palestinian Authority: The Security Forces and Other Armed Elements 
The escalation of violence between Israelis and Palestinians in recent weeks has been extraordinarily fierce, and Israel’s rocketing of Palestinian Authority targets — specifically including posts of the Palestinian Police in Ramallah and Gaza — has been characterized by some Palestinian spokesmen as a “war”. At the same time, Israelis are outraged that the killings of two Israeli soldiers in Ramallah took place at a police station, where the Palestinian Police were either unable to prevent (or, Israelis suggest, were complicit in) the killings. Israel also says that Palestinian security forces have frequently engaged in firefights with the Israel Defense Forces, and also complains that the Tanzim (“Organization”), the militia of the Fatah movement, has been armed by the Palestinian Authority. The Sharm al-Sheikh agreement may defuse the immediate conflict, but deep suspicions and distrust are likely to remain, transforming the situation. (See Also Page One.)
The most profoundly visible difference between the intifada of 1987-93 and the present uprising is the fact that this time, not all the Palestinians are armed with stones alone; while still far less
well-equipped than Israeli forces, many on the Palestinian side do have firearms this time. Many Israeli opponents of the Oslo peace process have long charged that the Palestinian security
forces have grown far beyond the levels authorized in various interim peace agreements, and have far more armaments than permitted under those agreements. Estimates of the total size of
Palestinian security forces range around 41,000, as compared to a limit of 30,000 authorized by the September 1995 Interim Agreement (“Oslo II”).
Palestinians have tended to argue that if the police are somewhat more numerous than authorized, it is partly because Yasir ‘Arafat has used recruiting as a means of keeping his
population happy: the Palestinian Police are providing jobs, and ‘Arafat is rewarding his loyalists. The Palestinians have consistently denied that their armaments exceed those authorized in the
agreements, and deny that they have acquired heavier weapons than those permitted under the peace accords. The Palestinian Authority today controls much more territory than it did in 1995,
and thus arguably greater numbers of police might be justified. Both the numbers and the armament of the Palestinian security forces have been major issues of
debate, especially in th Netanyahu years, and Israel reportedly raised the issue repeatedly in the Wye peace talks. That said, there is clearly no symmetry of force structure between the two sides: Israel has a
well-trained, heavily armed Army with a modern Air Force; the Palestinians have pistols and rifles, some machineguns and perhaps some unauthorized antitank rocket launchers. They have
no armor, no aircraft other than helicopters for the transport of VIPs and some civilian passenger equipment, and no integrated command, control and communications. While some of their
security forces have trained in combat techniques, most have little training. Few would welcome an all-out war between these very mismatched forces, but some of the romantic young
Palestinians may believe that they can drive Israel from the territories as Hizbullah drove Israel from Lebanon. Most discussions of the Palestinian security forces and the other armed groups in the
Palestinian Authority have been either polemical attacks on them by Israelis and their supporters, or reflexive defenses by Palestinians and their supporters. This Dossier seeks to offer
a more dispassionate analysis of the armed elements in the Palestinian Authority, while recognizing that many details (including numbers and armament) often depend on reports from one side or the other.
From the beginning of the Oslo process, Israeli negotiators have insisted that the Palestinian Authority and any Palestinian state growing from it must be, essentially, demilitarized, prohibited
from maintaining armed forces beyond that needed to secure internal order and patrol its borders and coastline. At the same time, Israel has insisted that the Palestinian Authority must maintain
order within its own territory and prevent terrorist acts against Israeli targets from being planned on Palestinian soil, and that necessitates a strong police and internal security apparatus. Some
Palestinians complain that they are damned if they do, damned if they don’t: when the police force grows Israelis complain, but they also complain that it doesn’t arrest enough Hamas and
other radical opponents of the peace process. And when the PA does crack down on Hamas and other opposition groups to please Israel, international human rights groups complain loudly about
its heavy-handed, extrajudicial methods. The Palestinian security services — the police and various intelligence and other security operations — were approved in general in the original Oslo Declaration of Principles of 1993,
which called for establishment of “a strong police force” to “guarantee public order and internal security” in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The 4 May 1994 agreement setting up the Gaza and
Jericho enclaves (the Cairo Agreement) used similar words. The “Oslo II” agreements in September 1995 spelled out greater detail, authorizing one central command with four police
branches, and a separate coastal patrol unit. That and later agreements also spelled out questions of armament and number, with an overall limit of some 30,000.
Most observers agree that today the Palestinian security services number some 41,000. A few years ago Amnesty International estimated that there were around 20,000 in Gaza alone,
amounting to one policeman for every 50 residents, which it suggested was the highest ratio of population to civil police in the world. Amnesty and other human rights groups have also noted that the original agreements envisioned
a unified command for the various police units, reporting directly to the Council (the Palestinian Cabinet). But in fact, the security forces have reported only to the President, Yasir ‘Arafat, and
some have seemed to operate autonomously even of his control. Criticism of these arrangements has come from both the Israeli and human rights directions, but with the Israelis pressing the
Palestinian police to crack down harder on Islamist and other groups and the human rights groups complaining when they do. As will be seen from the listing below, some elements in the Palestinian police were directly
carried over from the Palestine Liberation Army (PLA), the PLO’s armed forces in exile, and these have had military training. Others have received only police training. The Palestinian
security services are a mix of Palestinians from the diaspora who returned with the PLO leadership from Tunis, and locally-recruited Palestinians, many of whom learned street fighting in the years of the intifada. By most accounts, however, a key element in the recent confrontations has come not from the formal Palestinian security services but from a sort of militia of the Fatah group, Yasir ‘Arafat’s
old revolutionary movement. Fatah (which means “Conquest” in Arabic but is also a reverse acronym of the Arabic for “Palestine Liberation Movement” was the core movement of the PLO,
and also its Palestinian wing in the territories was a major part of the Unified National Leadership of the Intifada, which managed that uprising in 1987-93. There have long been some tensions within Fatah,
as within the PA generally, between the “outside” leadership who were in Tunis in those years and the “inside” leadership who carried out the uprising in the territories. Fatah’s
quasi-militia is called simply the Tanzim (Organization), or Tanzim Sha‘abi (Popular Organization). Its reputed leader is Marwan al-Barghuti (Profile, Page 10), Secretary of Fatah’s
Higher Committee for the West Bank. Since sometime prior to 1998, Tanzim members have been armed, apparently with the full
approval of the Palestinian Authority; PA police officials have been quoted in the Israeli press as saying the Tanzim weapons are part of the Palestinian Security Services’ weaponry, though Fatah
is not an official instrument of the PA and is technically only one political faction or party, albeit a dominant one. The role of the Tanzim
in this most recent uprising seems obvious. It is also discussed further below and in the profile of Barghuti. Then there are the less legal groups, such as the Hamas armed wing, the ‘Izz al-Din Qassam
Brigades, whose arms are frequently seized by the Palestinian Security Services when Israeli pressure increases. And the PA has long insisted that it is not required to seize all privately
owned weapons in the territories (as Israel claims it must), since these weapons are not illegal under Palestinian law, whatever their status under Israeli law. This remains an issue in the
negotiations. Israel claims that weapons are frequently smuggled in through Gaza and across the Dead Sea, and stored for later use; this is hard to independently verify.
The Palestinian Security Services
Israeli and foreign critics have frequently attacked the proliferation of Palestinian police, intelligence, security and paramilitary bodies as violating the interim peace accords; indeed, with some 41,000 police, the Palestinian Authority has an unusually high ratio of security forces to population, as noted above. Its armament is generally limited by the interim agreements, though Israeli reports claim that arms have been smuggled in by sea through Gaza or across the Dead Sea from Jordan, and that actual total arms may be much higher than authorized. There are at least 12 official Palestinian security elements, 10 of them under the Palestinian Police or General Security Service and two of them independent. There are reports of other small units of various sorts, and these do not include the armed Tanzim of the Fatah movement, described later in this Dossier.
The Public (or General) Security Service or Palestinian Police
The overall umbrella security service originally authorized in the May 1994 agreement on implementing the Gaza-Jericho aspects of the Oslo Accords. Officially the Palestinian
Police Force Directorate, it has under its umbrella 10 separate services. The Public (or General) Security Service is commanded by Nasr Yusuf, Director of Public Security. The ten recognized subordinate operations (not necessarily
the only ones) are:
National Security Forces.
The National Security Forces are the closest thing to a legal Army the PA is allowed; it is responsible for patrolling the borders of the areas under full Palestinian control and provides the manpower for the Joint Patrols with Israel in the Area B zones under joint security patrols. The National Security Forces drew much of their initial manpower from the Palestine Liberation Army (PLA), the armed forces of the PLO. They have also recruited locally. Numbers more than 14,000.
Civil Police. Commanded by Ghazi al-Jabali, The Palestinian Civil Police, along with the National Security Forces, was explicitly created by the Cairo Agreement of 1994. It provides ordinary
day-to-day civil policing, including traffic control, in the towns. In addition, under the 1995 “Oslo II” agreements, it is authorized to carry limited armaments in some towns in jointly-patrolled Area B, where ordinarily
Palestinian Police were not to be armed. The Civil Police also has a special rapid deployment unit which is used for fast-response situations. Estimated to number more than 10,000.
The Preventive Security Service. One of the most powerful of the security services, the Preventive Security Service is an undercover, plainclothes, secret police-type operation. Its two commanders, Col. Jibril Rajub
in the West Bank and Col. Muhammad Dahlan
in Gaza, are both strong allies of Yasir ‘Arafat and wield considerable political power, and both have at various times been mentioned as possible successors of ‘Arafat. In 1997, when rumors of ‘Arafat’s ill health were rampant, there were even murmurings that the PSS might stage a coup if there was a dispute over succession. The PSS has been the security force most criticized by human rights activists at home and organizations abroad. Its forces are estimated at 5,000 or more.
General Intelligence. Of the two main mukhabarat
agencies, General Intelligence and Military Intelligence, General Intelligence is officially authorized by the 1994 Cairo Agreement, and is engaged in internal and external intelligence and liaison with other intelligence organizations (including Israeli and US), and is estimated to have 3,000 or more officers.
Military Intelligence. One of the agencies not clearly authorized by the interim agreements, Military Intelligence — al-Istikhbarat al-‘Askariyya
— is apparently an element aimed at maintaining a watch over the other security services and also at interrogating certain opposition or underground elements, alongside the Preventive Security Service.
Military Police. Said to be attached to Military Intelligence, the Military Police have been described as having a certain watchdog responsibility over other security elements. Coast Guard. As authorized
by the Cairo Agreement in 1994, the Palestinian Authority maintains a small Coast Guard in Gaza, its only seacoast. Drawn originally from the naval units of the PLO abroad, it operates a number of patrol boats to patrol Gaza’s
territorial waters and prevent smuggling. Some Israelis have accused it of using its boats to smuggle arms into Gaza. Air Guard. A small force of “Air Police” (al-Shurta al-Jawiyya) operates the PA’s
helicopters, which carry dignitaries between Gaza and the West Bank. Civil Defense. The Civil Defense Force was originally authorized under the Cairo Agreement and includes emergency rescue and fire services.
Local Security or “Governorate Security”. A local unit providing security for the local governorates (muhafazat) of the PA, this is a small force.
Two Special Security Units
These two units are not under the overall Public Security Service, but
report directly to the presidency.
Special Security. (Al-Amn al-Khass). The Special Security Force is directly under Yasir ‘Arafat’s personal control and is independent of the Palestinian General Security Services (Palestinian
Police). Created in 1995, it is officially responsible for gathering information on opposition groups in other Arab countries but, some Israeli analysts suspect, also serves to keep a watch on the Palestinian Security Services.
Presidential Security. (Al-Amn al-Ri’asa).
Presidential Security is an elite personal guard for ‘Arafat, commanded by Faisal Abu Shar‘a and according to most accounts consisting largely of people who originally were part of Force 17, the personal guard of ‘Arafat during his years as PLO leader. Although the original interim agreement known as “Oslo II” authorized a presidential guard under the Palestinian Police, Presidential Security reports directly to ‘Arafat.
Unofficial Armed Elements
The Tanzim Literally the “Organization”, originally a shortening of “Popular Organization”, this is the armed militia of the Fatah
movement, as described in the text. It has been widely reported as being the mainspring of the recent uprising, and is said to have been training with arms for the past several years. Its apparent leader is Marwan al-Barghuti, Secretary of the
Fatah Higher Committee in the West Bank, who is profiled on Armed Islamist Groups
The two main radical Islamist groups, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, maintain armed cells; Hamas’
are organized in the ‘Izz al-Din Qassam brigades. During periods of clashes with the PA security services, some of their weapons have been seized, but some of their leaders, Israel claims, have been released from Palestinian prisons during the present troubles. Total numbers under arms are usually estimated in the hundreds, but again, a larger sympathizing cadre may have been armed during the current troubles.
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