A blacked-out segment of the indictment against Eli Feldstein, filed by the State Attorney’s Office, raises serious concerns about the defense establishment's withholding of information from the Prime Minister and the Israeli public in an attempt to shield the terrorism-supporting Palestinian Authority.
The redacted text describes how an intelligence officer contacted Feldstein to pass along classified information regarding the involvement of a certain entity in the events of October 7. While the name of the entity was blacked out, an official statement by the State Attorney clarified that it was not the name of an individual or an organization.
Analyses suggest the blacked-out section could fit the phrase "the Palestinian Authority." If true, this would be nothing short of outrageous.
In a discussion on i24 News, Col. (Res.) Ronen Cohen, a former director of the “Aman” Israeli Military Intelligence Department, said, “There’s something suspicious about this redaction. When they say it’s neither the name of a person nor a terrorist organization, I suspect it refers to the Palestinian Authority. If I’m correct, I will have to use the word ‘betrayal’ for the first time.”
Cohen elaborated on the severe accusation:
“If the Prime Minister's office was intentionally kept uninformed about the potential involvement of the Palestinian Authority in the massacre, and if this suspicion proves accurate, this constitutes betrayal by the internal systems of the Shin Bet and the IDF.”
Since the beginning of the war, HaKol HaYehudi has repeatedly reported instances of the IDF Spokesperson refusing to disclose the organizational affiliations of terrorists linked to Fatah and the Palestinian Authority. This appears to be a political decision by elements within the Shin Bet and IDF who would like to preserve the Palestinian Authority and Mahmoud Abbas’s leadership in order to establish a Palestinian state.
For example, about three months ago, an airstrike killed eight terrorists in Tulkarem, including Hamas commanders and local Fatah-aligned Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade members. The two Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade operatives were implicated in numerous terrorist attacks, including preparing explosives for suicide bombings in the Shomron region.
Despite their record, the IDF delayed targeting them for some time. When the strike finally occurred, the IDF Spokesperson attributed the affiliation of one of the two to Hamas but concealed the fact that the other was affiliated with Fatah, led by Mahmoud Abbas.
The statement released by the IDF Spokesperson was a joint statement with the Shin Bet, and the IDF Spokesperson claims that the Shin Bet is the one who determines the organizational affiliations to be disclosed. Following criticism by a number of journalists regarding the concealment of terrorists’ Fatah affiliations, a security official admitted to HaKol HaYehudi that the IDF indeed acknowledged internally that the individual was a commander in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, but the Shin Bet had insisted that his affiliation not be mentioned.
While the Israeli security establishment appears to be doing everything possible to keep the Palestinian Authority functional, HaKol HaYehudi has exposed the military training programs underway for Palestinian Authority personnel in Pakistan—training of which the Shin Bet was unaware.
Several dozen Palestinian Authority operatives, perhaps more, have traveled to Pakistan in recent years for two-year courses at Pakistani military academies, graduating with degrees in military sciences and the rank of lieutenant.
These programs include training in armored warfare, artillery, shoulder-launched RPGs, heavy machine guns, sniping, parachuting, and more. Some participants undergo specialized courses in various fields lasting several months, including training at Pakistan’s naval academy.
They participate in the training wearing Pakistani military uniforms, while they also have ceremonial uniforms adorned with “Palestinian Army” insignias.
The “Palestinian Army” appears to primarily recruit from the Palestinian Authority's “National Security” mechanism, which serves as the foundation for establishing a formal military. Other PA armed forces include the Preventive Security force (akin to Israel’s Shin Bet), the police, the General Intelligence Service (paralleling the Mossad), Mahmoud Abbas’s Presidential Guard, and others, including the Civil Defense, which oversees firefighting and the coordination mechanism with Israel.
According to security assessments, these forces encompass approximately 40,000 armed personnel.
