Elements of the Palestinian police from Gaza are receiving training in Egypt to join a force that is expected to take over security duties in the Strip once the war ends, according to a Palestinian official.
اضافة اعلان
According to An-Nahar, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty announced in August, during a visit to the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing accompanied by his Palestinian counterpart Mohammad Mustafa, that Egypt is working on a plan to train 5,000 Palestinian police officers and security personnel in Cairo in preparation for their deployment in Gaza after the war.
The Palestinian official, who requested anonymity, told AFP that more than 500 police officers completed operational and theoretical training in Cairo in March, while hundreds of others have been undergoing similar training since late September.
A 26-year-old Palestinian officer who took part in the program, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “I am very happy with this training. We want the war and aggression to end permanently, and we are eager to serve our homeland and our people.”
He expressed hopes for the establishment of a security force that is “independent and not tied to external alliances or agendas. We want it loyal to Palestine only.”
According to the official, the newly trained officers will form part of a 5,000-member police force composed entirely of personnel from Gaza but paid by the Palestinian Authority, which is based in Ramallah.
Under an agreement brokered by Egypt at the end of 2024 between Hamas and Fatah—led by President Mahmoud Abbas—the 5,000 PA-affiliated officers will be integrated with another 5,000 officers from the Hamas-run police in Gaza.
The unified police force will operate under the authority of a “committee of independent technocrats,” agreed upon by Hamas and Fatah to administer the Gaza Strip, and will be deployed once the war concludes.
Trump Plan
The plan proposed by U.S. President Donald Trump to end the war in Gaza—which was recently endorsed by a UN Security Council resolution—states that the Strip should be governed by a temporary transitional authority run by a non-political Palestinian technocratic committee responsible for managing the daily needs of Gaza’s residents, under the supervision of an international transitional body.
The plan also calls for establishing an international stabilization force to support the Palestinian police in Gaza, coordinated by the United States, Jordan, and Egypt.
The Palestinian official confirmed that the Egyptian training program is being coordinated with the Palestinian Authority.
Each training cycle lasts two months and includes physical exercises, refresher training, and educational and security-focused lectures.
Border Security
A Palestinian first lieutenant, “Mahmoud” (a pseudonym), who took part in the first training course, said he had managed to leave Gaza with his family in February of last year.
In March, he was called to join a two-month training program at the Police Academy in Cairo, where he had completed his studies prior to the war.
He said he was part of a group of fifty officers who “received excellent operational training using modern technologies for border surveillance and handling advanced security screening systems at the crossings.”
According to an Egyptian source familiar with the plan, Cairo aims to prepare the Palestinian police force to take responsibility for security inside Gaza and at its border crossings.
Israel has kept the Rafah crossing with Egypt—the only gateway to the outside world for Gaza’s population not controlled by Israel—completely closed since early May 2024.
In Brussels, a European official, speaking anonymously, said the European Union intends to train around 3,000 police officers from Gaza outside the Palestinian territories.
The EU has funded a police training mission in the occupied West Bank since 2006, with an annual budget of about 13 million euros (roughly 15 million dollars).
The official added that a “large police force will be essential to stabilize Gaza” after the war.
A senior Hamas official said the movement “supports national Palestinian agreements regarding all details related to security and the management of the Gaza Strip.”
Israel (and the Trump plan) rejects any role for Hamas in administering Gaza in the post-war phase.
