Palestinian forces seek to protect Israel's intelligence

Text by: Guilhem Delteil Follow

It is yet another sign of the widening gap between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. While Benjamin Netanyahu plans to annex parts of the West Bank, the occupied Palestinian territory, the Palestinian Authority has announced that it will no longer be bound by the agreements signed with Israel. In particular, it claims to have ended security cooperation. And now, his security forces would seek to protect his files. 

Publicity

With our correspondent in Jerusalem, 

Israeli television channel 12 announced last week that in at least two cities in the West Bank, Palestinian intelligence has been ordered to hide many documents. According to Agence France Presse, citing Palestinian security sources, these operations have started well.

Some documents are even being destroyed. Scanned files are moved to secret locations. 

Security cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian forces involved concerted action on the ground, but above all an exchange of information in order to thwart the plans for attack. By ending this cooperation to protest against plans to annex part of the West Bank by Israel, Palestinian leaders say they are no longer transmitting information to Israeli forces.

The hiding of these files is a sign of distrust of Israel. The Palestinian Authority thus stresses that it considers plausible military operations on the premises of its security forces to seize these files. This had been the case during the second intifada in the early 2000s. And the last time the Palestinian Authority had sought to hide its information was just before the outbreak of this wave of violence.

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• Israel
• Palestinian territories