Security coordination between the Palestinian Authority and Israel in the West Bank raises a growing debate about the nature and objectives of this cooperation, especially after recent events that witnessed an escalation in security measures against activists and resistance fighters.
Within the segments of the episode “Above Authority” on 1/3/2025, the program reviewed an incident that sparked a wave of criticism, as video clips documented the Palestinian security forces arresting and torturing a defenseless young man before throwing him in a garbage container while he was handcuffed.
This incident brought back to the forefront questions about the limits and nature of the security role exercised by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
Tel Aviv Tribune also showed – yesterday, Thursday – the moment members of the Palestinian Authority Police handed over to our colleague Najwan Samri a written decision ordering the closure of Tel Aviv Tribune’s office and stopping its broadcast in Ramallah, claiming that “the channel violates the laws and regulations in force in Palestine.”
According to the Palestinian News Agency, “the decision to stop Tel Aviv Tribune’s broadcasting will be temporary until its situation is corrected,” after an incitement campaign issued recently in the name of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) in the West Bank against Tel Aviv Tribune and its journalists.
For its part, the Authority defends its security measures by saying that they aim to protect the residents of the West Bank from repeating the Gaza Strip scenario, in reference to the Israeli military escalation taking place in Gaza.
But critics of this policy believe that it goes beyond the limits of protection to direct coordination with the occupation authorities in pursuing the resistance and its supporters.
This situation raises fundamental questions about the future of the relationship between the Palestinian Authority and the resistance in the West Bank, and whether security coordination represents a distribution of roles with the occupation or a protection strategy, as the Authority claims.
