WhatsappEgypt has quietly begun training thousands of Palestinian security personnel earmarked for deployment in a post-Hamas Gaza Strip, according to senior Palestinian sources quoted by AFP and the London-based Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed.
The program, which Israeli defense officials have been tracking closely for months, is already well underway. In March 2025, the first cohort of over 500 Palestinian recruits completed an Egyptian-run course that included physical training, weapons handling, crowd control, and police theory. Additional groups of several hundred have been cycling through Egyptian facilities since September, with Cairo publicly committing to prepare as many as 5,000 officers in total.
From Israel’s standpoint, the Egyptian initiative is a double-edged sword.
On one hand, Jerusalem has repeatedly stated that Hamas must not be part of any future Gaza administration, and a professional, Egyptian-trained police force could theoretically fill the security vacuum left after the terror group’s military defeat. Israeli officials have long insisted that any post-war governing body be fully demilitarized and incapable of threatening Israeli communities bordering the Strip.
On the other hand, serious concerns remain in Israel’s security establishment:
- The exact vetting process for recruits is unclear, and there are fears that Hamas or Islamic Jihad sympathizers could infiltrate the new force.
- The program is tied to the November 2024 Cairo agreement between Fatah and Hamas, which envisions merging the 5,000 Egyptian-trained officers with 5,000 existing Hamas-controlled “police” who never disarmed.
- Funding for the new force will reportedly come from the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah—an entity that continues to pay salaries to terrorists under the “pay-for-slay” policy, a point of ongoing friction with Israel.
Defense officials in Tel Aviv note that while Egypt has proven itself a responsible actor in mediating ceasefires and preventing arms smuggling through the Philadelphi Corridor, Cairo’s vision of “Palestinian unity” often clashes with Israel’s red line of zero tolerance for any Hamas presence in Gaza’s future security apparatus.
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office declined to comment directly on the training program but reiterated Israel’s longstanding position: “Any force that enters Gaza on the day after must be thoroughly vetted, completely disconnected from terrorist organizations, and willing to cooperate fully with Israel on security matters. Anything less is unacceptable.”
As IDF operations continue to dismantle Hamas’s military structure, the question of who will hold the ground afterward grows increasingly urgent. For now, Israel is watching Egypt’s police project with cautious optimism—and a very close eye.
