The Defense Ministry is weighing a request by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to beef up his loyalist forces with Palestine Liberation Organization troops stationed in Jordan.
The move, which would strengthen Abbas in his power struggle with Hamas, is the latest sign that rival Palestinian factions are girding up for a possible civil war.
Is Mahmoud Abbas planning a coup?
Abbas, a moderate who heads both the PLO and the Fatah Party, has asked Israel's permission to let an unspecified number of troops from the Jordan-based Badr Brigade enter PA areas, Palestinian officials said.
As a PLO force, they would bolster Abbas in his showdown with the militantly anti-Israel Hamas, which runs the PA but does not belong to the PLO.
In the past, Israel has refused to let Badr troops enter PA areas.
But with the Hamas government preparing to reinforce its militia, and deadly Hamas-Fatah clashes intensifying in the Gaza Strip, Israeli officials have agreed to consider Abbas's request, Palestinian officials said.
An Israeli security source told The Jerusalem Post, "We have the request before us and we are reviewing it."
Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister's Office, said she couldn't comment on the request. But she said that in general Israel has tried to bolster the moderate forces within the Palestinian Authority.
"Abu Mazen is certainly a moderate in his world," she said.
Palestinian officials did not say how many Badr troops Abbas hopes to mobilize. What is most important to Abbas is that he would command their loyalty as head of the PLO, the Palestinian officials said.
Confrontations between Hamas and Fatah have heated up as the two sides failed to reach agreement on forming a coalition government that would recognize Israel - a key step to bringing the PA back into the international community's good graces.
The EU, US and other donors cut off hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to the Palestinian Authority after Hamas unseated Fatah in parliamentary elections and took power in March. But Hamas has rejected international demands that it recognize Israel and renounce violence, despite deepening hardships in the West Bank and Gaza.
On Friday, Abbas raised the stakes in his political standoff with Hamas, warning he would dissolve Hamas's government within two weeks and form a cabinet of professionals if the Islamic group didn't agree by then to form a coalition, aides said.
Abbas, an advocate of peacemaking elected separately last year, is the supreme commander of all 85,000 Palestinian security personnel, most hired by Fatah when it controlled the PA. But the Hamas-run Interior Ministry commands four of the seven security branches, including its own, recently formed militia, which now numbers 5,700 armed men. And last week, it announced plans to recruit an additional 1,500 forces in the West Bank, Fatah's stronghold.
The threat of heightened unrest led Palestinian officials from both sides to increase police presence on Saturday.
In Gaza, police in blue-and-white camouflage uniforms deployed around the parliament building, and in Ramallah, security personnel were posted outside parliament, the Prime Minister's Office and the Education Ministry.
In an attempt to ease tensions, a coordinating committee for all Palestinian factions, including Fatah and Hamas, met on Friday night in Gaza, and agreed to remove all their non-uniformed gunmen from the streets.
Original Source