Security coordination with Israel resumed, PA official says

The head of the Palestinian police in the West Bank confirms that security coordination has resumed with Israel, after it was partly suspended in July.

“Everyone is coordinating now. That means things returned to what they were before July 14,” Hazem Atallah says. “Things are normal now.”

He later confirms to journalists in Ramallah that it was around two weeks ago that security coordination resumed fully.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas announced in July security coordination was being suspended in protest of Israel installing new security measures at the entrance to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, although it was unclear to what extent it was actually cut.

The security measures, including metal detectors, were installed after two Israeli policemen were killed in the area by Arab Israeli gunmen who emerged from the holy site to commit the attack.

Atallah says security coordination was never completely cut for the police, saying 95 percent of the activities had continued.

“The only thing we stopped is we didn’t meet them in the field,” he adds.

“We don’t work with politics. We work for people,” he says, defending the coordination, which polls say is unpopular with most Palestinians.

— AFP