Palestinian police to be trained in Egypt as Gaza rebuilds security forces

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty says the training programme aims to prepare 5,000 Palestinian police officers to help rebuild Gaza’s post-war security. (Photo: Reuters)

By Bashir Mbuthia
Sunday, November 30, 2025

More than 500 recruits completed the course in Cairo in March, with new groups joining the two-month training exercise in September.

Egypt is moving ahead with plans to help shape Gaza’s post-war security by training large numbers of Palestinian police officers.

Reports indicate that the programme, which aims to prepare 5,000 officers, was agreed in August during talks between Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa.

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According to the AFP, more than 500 recruits completed the course in Cairo in March, with new groups joining the two-month training exercise in September.

All the officers will be drawn from Gaza and will be paid by the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah, which is working with Egypt on the initiative under instructions from President Mahmoud Abbas.

The training is part of an earlier deal reached in Egypt-brokered talks, which proposed a 10,000-member police force for Gaza, with half trained in Egypt and half drawn from existing Gaza police structures.

"I'm very happy with the training. We want a permanent end to war and aggression, and we're eager to serve our country and fellow citizens," said a 26-year-old officer who completed the training.

Despite the ceasefire agreement brokered by the United States last month, Israel has continued to carry out strikes in Gaza, pushing casualty figures even higher.

A new study has revealed that Israel’s two-year war on Gaza has killed far more Palestinians than most official estimates, with fatalities likely exceeding 100,000 since the conflict began in October 2023.

Research conducted by the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Germany and the Centre for Demographic Studies (CED) in Spain estimates the total death toll in Gaza at between 99,997 and 125,915, with a median figure of over 112,000.

This is significantly higher than the roughly 70,000 deaths reported by most media outlets.

The study also found that the war has taken a severe toll on life expectancy in Gaza, which dropped by 44 per cent in 2023 and 47 per cent in 2024—equivalent to losing more than 34 years in 2023 and over 36 years in 2024 compared with what it would have been without the conflict.

"Our estimates of the impact of war on life expectancy in Gaza and Palestine are significant, but probably represent only a lower limit of the actual mortality burden. Our analysis focuses exclusively on direct, conflict-related deaths," one of the study’s researchers said.