Israel-PA military cooperation improves in the West Bank

Haaretz 02:46 24/01/2008

By Yuval Azoulay, Haaretz Correspondent

Military cooperation with the Palestinian Authority has improved in recent months, even though defense officials Wednesday criticized the conduct of the Palestinian Preventive Security Service in the shooting attack near Mt. Hebron three weeks ago. In that attack, off-duty Israel Defense Forces soldiers David Rubin and Ahikam Amihai were killed. Both suspects in the shooting, who turned themselves in immediately after the incident, were sentenced earlier this week by a Palestinian court to 15 years in prison and were jailed in Hebron. Some IDF officers compared the conditions in PA prisons to summer camp. In addition, without a green light from Jerusalem, the Israeli security forces cannot take action to capture perpetrators.
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Nevertheless, the IDF enjoys complete freedom of action in the cities of the West Bank. In 2007 the number of meetings between Israeli and Palestinian officers defined as "significant" more than doubled. Before the formation of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's government last June, the IDF permitted Palestinian forces to carry out 46 armed operations in West Bank cities. Since June, the number climbed to 371. Some reservations have been expressed about the defense establishment's policy. One is that these operations should not take place in places with high levels of friction with the Jewish population.