Senior PA security official: Hamas, PIJ recruiting youth ‘with nothing to live for’

The Palestinian Authority faces an uphill battle in its attempt to curb terror in the West Bank, where Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have been recruiting impoverished youth to carry out attacks, a senior officer in the PA’s Preventive Security Service revealed in a meeting this week, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told The Times of Israel.

Brigadier General Hassan Asfour, who serves as director of central operations in the Preventive Security Service, told members of the Palestinian diaspora in the US that the PA has intensified its arrests of Hamas and PIJ fighters in the West Bank in recent months.

While interrogating those suspects, the Preventive Security Service learned that many of them are from the poorest segments of society with “no food to eat” and “nothing to live for,” Asfour said, according to the source, who requested that the exact time and location of the meeting in the US not be shared in order to protect his identity. Asfour held several recent meetings with Palestinian diaspora communities in Virginia and Chicago and posted pictures from the latter gathering on Sunday. READ MORE