Palestinians, including children, celebrating the Second Intifada. Photo: Screenshot.

The Palestinian Authority Security Forces (PASF) had the largest number of terrorists in the Second Intifada, boasted a senior PA official.

PA Tulkarem District Governor Abdallah Kmeil bragged how the number of PASF members killed fighting Israel far exceeded the number killed by other terror organizations combined during the PA-led terror campaign of 2000-2005:

“Tulkarem District Governor Abdallah Kmeil: Let’s speak in a scientific language, in the language of numbers, which is the strongest language. There were 2,089 Martyrs from the [PA] Security Forces in the second Intifada … The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades of Fatah had 632 Martyrs, the Al-Quds Brigades of the [Islamic] Jihad had 415 Martyrs, and the [Izz A-Din] Al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas had 378 Martyrs.”

[Tulkarem Governorate, Facebook page, Feb. 13, 2026]

By comparing PASF casualties to those of recognized terror groups, Kmeil showed that the PA Security Forces — who were trained and funded by the West to fight terror — were actually the leaders of Palestinian terror.

The Second Intifada was the PA-directed and controlled terror campaign, during which Palestinians carried out thousands of terror attacks, including suicide bombings on buses, in shopping malls, and on main streets, murdering more than 1,100 Israelis.

Last year, PA TV aired an interview with a PASF member jailed by Israel for terror offenses during the Second Intifada, who explained that the PASF “responded to this call” — to join the terror organizations in fighting Israel:

Released PA Security Forces terrorist prisoner Naji Arar: “I was a member of the Security Forces, of the security establishment. When we responded to the call of the homeland – we responded to this call through the Security Forces.

Do you remember the Al-Aqsa Intifada? The ones who resisted there were the Security Forces members, of course, in cooperation with our people and the factions.

I was arrested in Ramallah and sentenced to 18 years… It was shocking. But for Palestine, everything is insignificant. We were released… and met the security establishment through which we launched [our activity back then]. It welcomed us.”

[Official PA TV, Giants of Endurance, May 30, 2025 and Sept. 20, 2025]

Most importantly, the PASF leadership role in terror continues today unabated, as exposed in the June 2025 report by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) titled “Terrorists in Uniform.”

In 2023, after calling the killing of 12 Israelis that year “acts of resistance,” Fatah-run Adwah TV reported that “the members of Fatah and the Security Forces form the core and the arms of the resistance [i.e., terror] groups in the West Bank, together with the other Palestinian factions.”

PMW has likewise documented Fatah honoring dead PASF members who were terrorists killed while attacking Israelis.

Therefore, Kmeil’s words were surely no slip of the tongue. They were a public expression of what the PA and Fatah know: that PA Security Forces members take a leading role in Palestinian terror, a role that is a source of pride, to be celebrated.

This is all the more reason why any talk of parts of Gaza being handed over to the PASF to police the Strip is misguided and unacceptable, since it would be simply replacing one terror group, Hamas, with another — PA Security Forces.

Itamar Marcus is the Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Ahron Shapiro is a contributor to PMW, where a version of this article first appeared.