Palestinian Authority (PA) security services have stopped 40 per cent of all planned resistance attacks against occupation forces, Israel’s Maariv newspaper reported.

The paper said PA security forces played a significant role in curbing Palestinian protests and maintaining “public order” in the occupied West Bank.

“If this aid had not been provided to Israel, Hamas would have been able to deepen its terrorist status and its political status in the West Bank, which threatens to undermine the PA,” the paper explained.

It is reported that Israel is petitioning Western governments, including the United States, to train and provide equipment to Palestinian security services fearful that any change to funding to the PA could “cause damage to security coordination”.

“There was a slowdown in security coordination, but it very quickly went back to normal,” Maariv reported in reference to the PA’s severing of ties with the occupation following Israel’s installation of metal detectors at the doors of Al-Aqsa Mosque in July last year.

The PA has come under consistent criticism for pandering to Israeli interests whilst ignoring the Palestinian national cause and undermining the resistance.

Read: PA takes pre-emptive measures to prevent Return March in West Bank