Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s Prime Minister in Gaza, boasted late last week that Hamas and Fatah have reached an agreement on combining the two organizations’ security forces.

The news site Ma’an reported:

“We agreed on all the details of the security file, we are committed to what we signed. We will not allow the return of security disorder to the Gaza Strip,” Haniyeh said in a graduation ceremony in the besieged coastal enclave.

“We will not give up the weapon of resistance, and we will not forsake resistance,” Haniyeh added, stressing that Hamas “will not depart the position of manliness and dignity and will remain loyal soldiers of Palestine.”

Haniyeh’s boast further undermines Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s claim that the unity agreement “would remain under his political and ideological control, and that he would ensure that it recognized Israel, fulfilled binding Palestinian treaty obligations, and renounced violence.”

On a practical level, the apparent agreement confirms concerns raised in The Tower earlier this month:

However, that cooperation is now being threatened by the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation and the announcement that 3,000 Fatah military personnel will be transferred from the West Bank to Gaza to join with Hamas forces there. According to reports, this comes as part of a secret “security clause” in the agreement between the two Palestinian movements that would bring an end to security cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. …

Recent reports revealed that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is preparing to induct Hamas into the Palestine Liberation Organization – the body that signed the Oslo Accords with Israel. Abbas is also going to let Hamas hold on to its weapons. The terrorist organization is retaining its rejectionist stance against international demands that it join the peace process by first renouncing violence, accepting previous accords signed by the Palestinians, and recognize Israel’s existence.

Earlier this week, a Palestinian source told the Times of Israel that there was “pressure on the Palestinian leadership to immediately sever ties with Israel’s security apparatuses.”

If the PA goes ahead with its security cooperation with Hamas as it downgrades its cooperation with Israel, it could lead to a dangerous situation where armed terrorists would be allowed to patrol near Israeli population centers. It also opens the possibility of a Hamas takeover of all Palestinian institutions in the West Bank.

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