Canadian soldiers in West Bank face a murkier mission as Gaza war clouds the future of a two-state solution

As the conflict between Israel and Hamas surpasses a year, one of the last remnants of the 30-year-old Oslo agreements faces increasing challenges.

The Office of the U.S. Security Coordinator was established in 2005 by a coalition of nine countries, including the U.S., the U.K. and Canada, with the goal of creating the conditions for a two-state solution – and specifically preparing for a Palestinian state that could meet Israel’s security requirements.

The USSC is intended to manage communication between Palestinian and Israeli forces, such as counterterrorism operations, intelligence sharing and alerts of Israeli military incursions into the West Bank.

While spearheaded by a three-star American General, the USSC is staffed by all of the countries in the coalition, with Canada comprising the largest contingent of staff with 30 personnel, according to documents obtained through an access to information request to Global Affairs Canada. They are separate from Canadian peacekeeping forces in the region.

For the nearly two decades before Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel – which saw almost 1,200 people killed and 250 taken hostage – Canadian Forces have played a key role in facilitating communication between Israeli and Palestinian security forces in the West Bank, but their primary focus has been leading the USSC’s training component, known within the Canadian Armed Forces as Operation Proteus.

Canadian personnel in Jerusalem and the West Bank mentor and train the Palestinian Authority Security Force (PASF), which includes the police, Presidential Guard, civil defence, and National Security Forces, to enhance their capabilities.

Over the past two years, Canada has also donated equipment such as light armoured vehicles, firefighting tools and explosive ordnance disposal units.

For some time, the USSC’s effort appeared to work – in her 2011 memoir, former U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice wrote that the co-ordination and training was so successful, “it was getting harder for the Israelis to claim that the Palestinians weren’t fighting terror,” and “harder for them to claim they had no partner for peace.”

Now, the USSC’s mission is on shaky ground. As violence in the West Bank has surged in the past year, the PASF is increasingly unpopular among Palestinian civilians and politicians because of its role in suppressing Palestinian resistance through the USSC’s co-ordination, as well as human-rights abuses against Palestinians by police that have gone unchecked.

Meanwhile, “day after” plans for a ceasefire, which may include roles for Canadian-trained PASF, are unclear.

Open this photo in gallery:

Brigadier-General Frédéric Pruneau joined Operation Proteus in June for a one-year rotation as Task Force Commander. From his offices in Jerusalem and Ramallah, he must work with Palestinian forces under considerable strain. After Oct. 7, 2023, “there’s a bit less trust between the two parties,” he said in an interview with The Globe and Mail. “Obviously we need to work with the Israelis, as much as we’re working with the Palestinian Authority. And that relation has been more difficult in the past year, and we are there to help them recover from that loss of trust.”

The mandate for Operation Proteus is scheduled to expire on March 31, 2025, and Canada’s Department of National Defence has stated it will be assessing the mission’s alignment with Canada’s defence objectives in the region’s “rapidly shifting” geopolitical landscape, according to a spokesperson for the department.

During the Oslo II Accords in 1995, the West Bank was divided into three administrative zones – areas A, B and C – a governance structure that was intended to be temporary until the Palestinian Authority would assume control of all three zones under a two-state solution. But as Israel approved settlements in the West Bank, deemed illegal under international law, and declared parts of the West Bank to be “closed military zones,” the likelihood of a two-state solution eroded.

And so the divisions remain almost 30 years later. Area B, which comprises 22 per cent of the West Bank, is under joint Israeli and Palestinian control, and Area C, which makes up 60 per cent, is under Israeli control. The PASF maintains control over Area A – 18 per cent of the territory, which includes security-sensitive cities such as Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarem, where militia groups are more concentrated – yet these areas have increasingly seen incursions by Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in the past year. During such operations, the PASF is required to immediately withdraw. According to Brig.-Gen. Pruneau, it’s difficult for USSC to maintain its credibility in the face of these incursions, which he says undermine the forces’ morale and the spirit of the agreement – but Israel says these are necessary security operations.

Even before the Israel-Hamas war, Palestinian perceptions of the security co-ordination with the Israelis was an existential threat to the USSC. Accused by Palestinian NGOs and activists of stifling freedom of expression and committing human-rights violations in their activities, the PASF have enjoyed less and less support from Palestinians. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has frequently threatened to freeze the PASF’s co-operation with the international force, including within the past year, but he has also in the past spoken about its benefits.

In 2016, frustrated by an incursion, Mr. Abbas told Israeli newspaper Haaretz, “If we give up security co-ordination there will be chaos here. There will be rifles, and explosions and armed militants popping up everywhere and rushing at Israel. Without the co-ordination, a bloody intifada would break out. I want to co-operate with the Israelis. There is an agreement between us and I am not ashamed by it. But [Netanyahu] must respect it.”

A crucial component of the co-ordination is a well-staffed and motivated PASF, but salaries have been reduced and irregularly paid for many years. The situation worsened when Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich – who has called for the end of the co-ordination – announced the withholding of Palestinian Authority tax revenues following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack. These funds, which are usually collected by Israelis and then administered to Palestinian services, had been held back on-and-off for many years prior. As a result, Brig.-Gen. Pruneau’s office estimated in September that PASF personnel are only being paid between 50 to 70 per cent of their established salary, with payments behind by “a couple of months.”

Brig.-Gen. Pruneau expressed concern about the future viability of the PASF, stating that recruiting has become a problem because the PASF “have not much to offer except maybe a nice uniform, and their credibility has been affected in the past year.”

He warned that without reliably paid jobs available in civil and security sector, young people are more likely to turn to militancy. Additionally, many young Palestinians view joining an institution that co-ordinates with Israeli forces as collaboration with the occupation, reflecting a broader sense of disillusionment with the Oslo Accords and its unfulfilled promises.

Israeli raids into the West Bank, occasionally accompanied by air strikes, in particular erode Palestinian trust in the co-ordination. As well, certain areas of the West Bank, such as the Jenin refugee camp, are considered too dangerous for PASF to operate, and are controlled by militant groups sometimes aligned with Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The IDF raids have killed 719 Palestinians since Oct. 7, 2023, both militants and civilians, while also causing widespread destruction of local infrastructure and restricting access to health care, according to Doctors Without Borders. Canadian forces with Operation Proteus have focused some of their training mandate on first-response capabilities after raids, with an emphasis on first aid.

“First aid training quickly became a top priority for the PASF, as they now want to teach their own population to provide first aid,” Brig.-Gen. Pruneau said. UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned in August that these raids are “fuelling an already explosive situation in the occupied West Bank and further undermining the Palestinian Authority.”

While Operation Proteus does not interface with security issues in Gaza, the USSC’s mission has increasingly focused on monitoring settler violence, which has surged in the past year, in part because of an Israeli policy to arm settlers in the West Bank. Though the Oslo agreements prohibit Palestinian forces and USSC forces from directly responding to violence from Israeli settlers and soldiers, Brig.-Gen. Pruneau said the USSC and Operation Proteus have worked to identify such settlers through open-source information sharing, efforts which have contributed to the sanctioning of some individuals by the U.S., Canada and others.

Brig.-Gen. Pruneau said his office is working to strengthen the Palestinian Authority’s witness protection protocol in settler violence-related cases, and is establishing a 911-like call centre for reporting settler violence, which aims to facilitate quicker responses by Israeli forces. However, several NGOs – including the UN and B’tselem, which advocates for human rights – have documented instances where the IDF itself has been involved in, or witness to, settler violence without intervening, raising concerns about the effectiveness of such measures.

As 2024 nears its end, analysts say the goal of a peaceful two-state solution laid out in the Oslo Accords is even farther away than it was when the accords were signed three decades ago. As Israel’s government asserts its control over the West Bank and moves farther to the political right, and the Palestinian Authority struggles with dwindling credibility among its own people, the USSC and Canadian forces increasingly appear as the last vestiges of the Oslo peace process and Canada’s Middle East policy.

For the moment, though, Operation Proteus continues. “You can feel that the morale has been hampered, but they still show up to work,” said Brig.-Gen. Pruneau of the PASF, “and that relation is so strong that as long as they feel that the international community is there, they will still show up.”

Open this photo in gallery:

The Globe in the Middle East: More coverage

The Decibel podcast

From our correspondents

Six enigmatic words from Donald Trump have set the Middle East, Europe and the world on edge

Palestinian peace activist’s death brings grief to a West Bank city, and denial from Israeli forces

Gazans, Israeli families feel forgotten as focus shifts to Lebanon and Iran

Globe photojournalists in Lebanon capture three weeks of woe