PA-Israel security coordination is cooperation between official security agencies, supported by a U.S. coordinator. Hamas’s Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades operate separately from the PA’s security services and do not answer to the PA chain of command. The two arrangements are institutionally distinct.
What coordination does
The U.S. Security Coordinator’s office says it works with Israel and the PA to improve security cooperation, advise on PA security-sector reform and facilitate communication between Israeli and PA security forces. The office was established in March 2005 and describes its mission as improving coordination and professional capacity. The State Department’s mission description specifies that role.
Coordination is an ongoing relationship between security institutions; it does not merge them into a joint force. The PA’s forces operate under its official institutions. Hamas maintains its own armed wing, and its takeover of Gaza in June 2007 showed that Hamas’s military apparatus could seize PA security installations and displace rival officials. The UN Human Rights Council documented the capture of security headquarters and government sites in its account of the June fighting. The UN report on the 2007 takeover describes those events.
Hamas’s armed structure
Hamas’s Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades are its military wing. The U.S. government designates Hamas as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and identifies the brigades as the group’s military wing. Their separate command structure is central to the unresolved institutional divide: agreements to restore PA administration in Gaza have not integrated Hamas’s armed forces into PA security command.
Fatah-linked armed groups have had changing local affiliations and organization. It is inaccurate to treat every group using a Fatah-associated name as a single disciplined force controlled by the PA. The key distinction is between official PA security services and armed organizations outside their command. For the governing split that sustains this distinction, see the comparison of Gaza and PA administration.