Jordan holding 'significant' arms cache earmarked for PA but blocked by Israel

Jordan is keeping “very significant” quantities of arms that the US is using to train Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces, which Israel is refusing to allow back into the occupied West Bank, multiple people briefed on the matter, including a US official, told Middle East Eye.

The US and its partners use Jordan to conduct ‘live fire’ exercises for PA security forces, usually for around one week, following six weeks of training in Jericho in the occupied West Bank. The training has accelerated in recent months with the intention to send security forces to Gaza with a focus on “counterterrorism”.

The training could increase with officials sounding an optimistic note on a ceasefire in Gaza.

US, Arab, Turkish and Israeli mediators are huddling in Egypt’s resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh to hammer out a deal. Concurrently, diplomats are meeting in Paris this week to discuss the framework for the deployment of international forces to Gaza. US President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he may be travelling to the region on Saturday.

Trump’s 20-point peace plan calls for Jordan and Egypt to play leading roles in training Palestinian security forces. Egypt is also in talks with the US about participating in a wider “international stabilisation force” among other Arab and Muslim countries.

The PA’s inability to bring weapons its forces are training with in Jordan back into the occupied West Bank underscores how any stabilisation force that enters Gaza, including one staffed by the US’s Arab allies, will require Israeli approval and could hit serious logistical challenges if Israel looks to veto certain activities.

In the case of Jordan, Amman is not attempting to keep the arms, sources and officials briefed on the matter told MEE. But PA forces train in Jordan with US weapons, which the Israeli military office that oversees the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, known as Cogat, is refusing to let some weapons back in.

“Significant quantities of containers [of weapons] end up at the border that Israel does not allow through, so the US military just gives them to the Jordanians,” one of the sources briefed on the matter told MEE.

One US official described the containers of weapons as an “added bonus” for Jordan, a resource-poor kingdom whose ruling family, the Hashemites, relies on US aid dollars to sustain a vast patronage system that helps keep it in power. MEE previously revealed that Jordan was charging between $200,000 and $400,000 per airdrop over Gaza.

Jordan is a key US ally and cooperates closely with the American military, including in Syria, where Washington has been lobbying it to take a more active role in combating the Islamic State group as it tries to extricate itself.

The sources who spoke with MEE couldn't confirm what Jordan does with the extra containers of weapons it is obtaining. But the Jordanian military has been embroiled in arms scandals before.

Gaza ceasefire windfall

In 2021, The Times reported that a British military officer advising King Abdullah II stopped a plot to sell $80m worth of military helicopters to Libyan General Khalifa Haftar amid a UN arms embargo.

The unaccounted-for containers of arms that Jordan is receiving are relatively small in terms of the US’s defence budget, but the situation underscores how the US’s key Arab partners could reap profits from the security training and reconstruction that will take place in post-war Gaza. 

The PA training is handled by the US Security Coordinator’s (USSC) Office and funded with US taxpayer dollars.

For example, a former senior US official who worked with Egypt’s military said that Cairo - which is expected to provide a big bulk of peacekeepers to Gaza - will lobby to get paid handsomely for its contribution. 

“They would love to get their hands on international reconstruction funding, with a nice return going to state-owned companies,” the former official said.

Egypt wants US troops in Gaza as part of peacekeeping mission, officials say

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Jordan and Egypt each receive over $1bn of aid per year from the US.

Jordan’s aid package is the largest per capita in the world after Israel. Although Jordan was jolted when Trump abolished USAID, it quickly received assurances from the US that the roughly $1.45bn in US taxpayer funds it receives would keep flowing, Reuters reported.

King Abdullah II was credited by Arab diplomats with convincing Trump to drop his so-called “Gaza Riviera” plan earlier this year and adopt one put forward by Egypt and the Arab League when he visited the White House.

Trump’s 20-point plan incorporates several elements of the plan, including rejecting a forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.

Egypt has been training thousands of new Palestinian forces, according to media reports, but Jordan is also seeing an increase.

At least 250 PA security forces have travelled to Jordan in recent months as part of accelerated training to deploy first to refugee camps in the occupied West Bank, where they will be tasked with a crackdown on Palestinian fighters, and later, to the Gaza Strip, the sources told MEE.

At least 250 more cadets are scheduled to come to Jordan in the coming months. The training is taking place at the Jordan International Police Training Centre.

If the training is stepped up in the event of a Gaza ceasefire, it could prove lucrative for Jordan, the current and former US officials told MEE. Around $425m worth of Jordan’s annual US aid already includes Foreign Military Financing (FMF), and another $180m is provided to Amman for other security programmes.

Jordan and the US have a Defence Cooperation Agreement that gives the US sweeping priority access to Jordanian military bases. Jordan hosts nearly 4,000 US troops. The US has built some Jordanian facilities, but also pays rent on them when in use.