According to a report in the IDF magazine Bamahane ("In the Camp"), Israeli's security services are preparing for the possibility that they will be stood down in the event of progress in the current round of indirect talks between the Palestinian National Authority and the State of Israel.

 

Many strategic locations outside the cities and villages turned over to the PA as part of the Oslo Accords were re-occupied by the IDF following the second Intifada. According to journalist David Bedein, this military presence, and not the security fence, is what brought the terror offensive to an end.

 

IDF, police and GSS forces make frequent nightly raids on the homes of terrorists in Area A, the territory marked as under full PA control in the Oslo Accords. While the Palestinian Authority is obligated to fight terrorism under both Oslo and the Roadmap, incitement has continued and PA Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad is reported to be paying the salaries of fighters belonging to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the militant wing of President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party.

 

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades has claimed credit for some of the Qassam-rocket strikes emanating from the Gaza Strip, including a March 2010 strike that killed a Thai worker in the Negev farming community of Netiv Haasara.

 

The Palestinian Authority has been receiving military aid from the United States in order to develop its capabilities for combating terrorism. The program, entitled the USSC and led by Gen. Keith Dayton, had been hailed by observers in both Israeli and the US. However, there is some evidence that members of terror groups have infiltrated the ranks of the American trained forces, which have shown a reluctance to fight terrorism under many circumstances.

 

Some Israelis are worried that a handover of responsibility for anti-terror operations to the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, which endorsed "resistance" at its 2009 Bethlehem Conference, would have a deleterious effect on Israeli security.

 

Israeli Maj. Gen. (Res.) Ya’akov Amidror commented regarding the Palestinian security forces’ efforts to reduce terror, “There is a huge difference in the Palestinian view between law enforcement, which is seen as legitimate, and anti-terrorism, which is not seen as legitimate. … The U.S. confuses the two.”