WSJ: Egypt trains Palestinian security personnel to become part of future West Bank troops

Egypt has begun training Palestinian security forces to eventually become part of a 10,000 security troop as Arab countries rally around a vision of postwar Gaza without Hamas.

The American Wall Street Journal has published an article dedicated to this development on August 27, Caliber.Az reports.

According to their reporting which cites unnamed Arab officials, security members are undergoing training at Egyptian military academies in order to become part of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) security services in the West Bank.

"Some Palestinians from the authority’s Fatah faction—the secular nationalist Palestinian political party and Hamas rival—could come from Gaza too, they added," the article cites the official.

Egypt's Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty has spoken about those preparations in a previous interview, where he stated that the Palestinian officers would be trained to fill the “security vacuum” in the enclave.

The diplomat revealed that this initiative, focusing on security personnel, which is taking place in coordination with Jordan and the PA, as well as the reconstruction efforts of the Gaza Strip, would proceed under the PA's oversight.

In his interview given in mid-August, the minister added that Cairo plans to host an International Conference for the Reconstruction of Gaza once a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is reached, where issues concerning the strip will be discussed with the participation of Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa, a member of the PA.

He back then explained that a 15-member panel of Palestinian technocrats unaffiliated with any faction would govern Gaza for six months to enable the “rehabilitation” of PA institutions to assume control, effectively requiring Hamas to relinquish authority in favour of the PA.

By Nazrin Sadigova