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Just simplifying a bit, there's the whole thing about zones, and of course plenty of "interstate commerce" as it were. But ultimately the PA are in charge because the Israelis let them be in charge, as the zone system demonstrates with great clarity. Of course I'd still say that the Palestinians themselves should have more urgency in trying to reform or replace the PA with something better, we shouldn't let them off the hook, but the PA is far from a full-fledged state, even laying military matters aside. The Israelis have effective veto power over the broad strokes of what they do.
Yes, PA is not a full state, because any solution that was designed to get them to full state and permanent resolution of the conflict has been thoroughly and consistently rejected by the Palestinians. And when Gaza was made an experiment in de-facto evolving towards full self-rule without a formal agreement, what Israel got as the result is October 7. There's absolutely no desire in Palestinian politics to reach any permanent solution that involves Israel existing in peace. Given that, any additional sovereignty level that Israel allows would only lead to more casualties on Israel's side. Gaza demonstrated it (and continues to demonstrate, with Hamas' thorough rejection of any arrangement that requires Hamas to give up on killing Israelis) very convincingly, and demanding from Israel to be more suicidal than it already is does not sound like a fair demand.
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This isn't a unique system, though. Maybe the degree of adversarial-ness is, but there are plenty of sub-state level actors with differing degrees of autonomy. American Samoa issues its own passports, but isn't an independent state or full protectorate ("nationals, not citizens"). New Caledonia has a somewhat similar arrangement. And it's not all obviously-colonial arrangements either: the Crown Dependencies of the UK don't seem to have active independence movements that I've heard of, but seem about as sovereign (perhaps with fewer border checkpoints) as the PA in the West Bank is on paper.
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