What is the Palestinian authority ?
The Palestinian Authority (also known as the Palestinian National Authority) is a governmental body established during the 1990s as part the Oslo Accords signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
The PA was supposed to be a temporary government on the way to the creation of an independent Palestinian state in the occupied Palestinian territories (West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza) by 1999 as part of a two-state solution and permanent regional peace agreement, but that never happened because Israel refused to end its military rule over Palestinians and continued to expand Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land in violation of international law.
The PA has no sovereignty or real power, operating in parts of the occupied West Bank and Gaza under the overall control of the Israeli military. This means the Israeli army can, and frequently does, invade areas supposedly under PA control injuring, killing, and imprisoning Palestinians at will, as part of an effort to stamp out resistance to its occupation and theft of land for settlements. It also means Israel controls virtually all aspects of life for Palestinians in the occupied territories, including where and when they can travel, where they can live and build, imposing a web of restrictions and obstacles that make a normal life virtually impossible.