Ramallah: A senior officer at the Palestinian security apparatus has urged the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to impose security measures to minimize or end the direct interaction between the Israeli secret service and the Palestinian public.
The Israeli secret service currently summons Palestinians for security interviews and is also automatically involved when Palestinians apply for cards and all types of permits to enter Israel, including work permits.
According to the Oslo Accords, those matters should be handled by the Palestinian-Israeli District Coordination Offices (DCO) without interaction between the Israeli secret service and the Palestinian public.
The security official said that there has been an alarming rise in the number of collaborators discovered by the Anti-Spy Department at the Palestinian Preventive Security and in the number of people who have approached the department to provide voluntary confessions.
“The Israeli security services interpret the agreements their own way and take advantage of naive members of the Palestinian pubic,” the official who refused to allow release of his name told Gulf News.
“Palestinian labourers working in Israel are a key target for the Israeli security service which uses work permits as an effective bargaining tool,” he said. A Palestinian labourer gains 300-500 Shekels (Dh284-Dh474) daily, and more than 50,000 Palestinian labourers have official work permits for Israel.
Under the miserable economic conditions currently in the West Bank, working in Israel is desirable, he said. “The Israeli security service uses this Palestinian need to recruit as many spies as possible,” he said.
The Israeli Civil Administration offers Palestinian labourers one, three or six month work permits. Security approval is essential for any type of entry permit and for the renewal of the permit. “Secret permanent approval for work permits is the reward Israeli security offers those who agree to become spies,” he said.
In many cases, labourers who initially refuse to cooperate are granted work permits for long periods and then their permits are suspended. That is when the bargaining starts, he said, for the labourer is used to the high income he was getting.
“The security awareness of the average Palestinian does not equal in any way the capabilities of the well-trained Israeli security officers who meet them,” he said.
The Palestinian officer said that the Palestinian security apparatus will face another serious challenge in Eid Al Adha, when Israeli authorities are expected to open up entry to the Palestinian public in the same way they did during Eid Al Fitr. On that occasion, the Israelis granted more than a million entry permits to Palestinians without any coordination with the DCO.
“The PNA should come up with new security measures to limit Israeli access to our nationals and in preparation for Eid Al Adha,” said the officer.
However he warned, “We should be extremely careful in this as the Israelis might suspend the work permits for all Palestinian labourers.”
“It will be extremely hard to cut off the access of Israeli security and keep Palestinian labourers in their jobs in Israel,” he stressed.
