The Shin Bet has privately warned top political leaders that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is unraveling, creating a volatile situation that could ignite a new wave of unrest in the West Bank, according to a Channel 12 report.

In a series of recent closed-door briefings, senior Shin Bet officials sounded the alarm over the PA’s worsening financial and institutional crisis. “Unemployment is rising, security personnel are receiving little or no pay, and core functions are eroding,” one security source said. “These factors could trigger chaos and a flare-up.”

The warning underscores growing fears within Israel’s security establishment that the fragile relative calm maintained in the West Bank over the past two years could be upended if the PA collapses.

Despite political divisions, the Shin Bet has reportedly made clear that the PA’s survival is in Israel’s own interest. Agency officials have pressed the government to take steps to shore up the Palestinian governing body—including restoring tax revenues and funds that the Israeli cabinet decided to withhold earlier this year.

“The collapse of the PA is not just their problem—it will quickly become ours,” one official was quoted as warning.

Any move to channel funds back to the PA faces fierce opposition inside Prime Minister Netanyahu’s cabinet. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has vowed to block efforts to ease the Authority’s crisis, arguing that the PA is corrupt, hostile to Israel, and undeserving of financial lifelines.

While international allies strongly support stabilizing the PA, the government remains split, leaving Israel’s leadership caught between security imperatives and political ideology.

The Shin Bet declined to comment on the Channel 12 report, saying only that it does not discuss internal deliberations. But the leaks point to a widening gap between Israel’s professional security establishment, which sees a functional PA as a strategic necessity, and hardline political leaders, who view any aid as a betrayal of principle.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)