An IDF reservist driving through western Binyamin overnight was surrounded by Palestinian Authority police who arrested him and took his M26. The incident is incredibly disturbing since the Oslo Accords, signed in 1993 by Israel and the Palestinian Authority, prohibit the PA police from operating in Area C.
As the reservist made his way toward the Dolev-Talmonim bloc, the PA officers stopped his vehicle, pulled him from the road, and took him into custody. They confiscated his military-issued weapon on the spot. He was held by Palestinian Authority officers on Israeli-controlled land before being released. The soldier was unharmed, but the incident left Israeli officials shaken over how easily PA forces were able to operate, detain, and disarm an Israeli citizen deep inside territory that is supposed to be under exclusive Israeli security control.
The Oslo II Accord divided Judea and Samaria into three administrative zones. In Area A, the PA holds full civil and internal security control. In Area B, the PA manages civil affairs and public order while Israel retains overriding security control. In Area C, Israel holds exclusive and full control over civil matters, planning, construction, and internal security.
The Beitunia bypass road sits squarely inside Area C. The PA has no independent security or policing jurisdiction there. Under Annex I of the Oslo Accords, if PA police need to travel through or operate in Area C, they must coordinate that movement in advance with the Israeli military and receive explicit approval. Setting up checkpoints, running patrols, or detaining individuals in Area C without that coordination is a direct violation of the security framework established by the accords.
The PA is strictly prohibited from conducting independent security operations, setting up checkpoints, or patrolling inside Area C. The Beitunia bypass road is located in Area C. Because the PA police operated there without the mandatory coordination and explicit prior approval of the Israeli military, the deployment itself was a violation. Under the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority has no legal jurisdiction over Israeli citizens. The Protocol states that if PA security forces encounter an Israeli citizen suspected of a crime or traveling in a restricted area, their only permitted action is to escort or protect the individual until they can be handed directly over to Israeli authorities. By actively detaining an Israeli citizen (an off-duty reservist) and seizing his military-issued weapon, the PA police directly infringed upon the exclusive security authority granted to Israel over its citizens in the West Bank
The Binyamin Regional Council sharply protested a statement issued by the Civil Administration in the incident’s aftermath, which pointed to the reservist himself, saying he had driven through a dangerous area, rather than addressing the fact that PA police had no authority to be operating in Area C at all.
Binyamin Regional Council head and Yesha Council chairman Israel Ganz did not mince words. “The serious incident overnight proves once again that the Oslo Accords have long since become a meaningless piece of paper,” Ganz said. “It is inconceivable that Abbas’ police officers can operate in Area C in violation of the agreements, detain an IDF reservist and take his weapon, while the State of Israel instead blames the Israeli who was traveling on the road. The time has come to recognize reality, cancel the Oslo Accords, and allow settlement and free movement in the open areas throughout Binyamin, Judea and Samaria.” Ganz also called on decision-makers to open a safe, secure route between the Dolev-Talmonim bloc and Highway 443.
The PA police broke that framework twice over. First, by deploying into Area C at all without coordination or approval. Second, and more seriously, by detaining an Israeli citizen.
This is not the first time PA police custody of Israeli soldiers has ended in catastrophe. On October 12, 2000, in the early days of the Second Intifada, reserve soldiers Vadim Nurzhitz and Yosef Avrahami mistakenly drove into Ramallah and were taken into custody at a PA police station. A mob stormed the station. The two soldiers were beaten to death inside, and one body was thrown from a window to a crowd below. A photograph of one of the attackers holding up blood-covered hands to a cheering crowd was broadcast around the world and remains one of the defining images of that period. No PA police officer inside the station stopped the killing.
The 2000 lynching stands as the starkest possible reminder of what happens when Israeli soldiers or civilians fall into PA police custody in violation of the security arrangements Oslo was built on. It was not a breakdown of coordination. It was a mob murder carried out inside a Palestinian Authority police station, with PA officers present.
Twenty-five years later, PA police are again operating where the accords forbid them to, again detaining Israelis they have no jurisdiction to detain. The soldier who lost his weapon on the Beitunia bypass road walked away. History records that not everyone who was detained by PA police in Area C did.
