Gaza’s future on hold

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 5 May 2026

On April 19 the New York Times, citing two senior Hamas officials, reported that Hamas is prepared to hand over to the Palestinian administrative committee the thousands of automatic rifles and other weapons used by its police and internal security forces in Gaza.  The officials framed this as a significant concession because Hamas, having re-established its authority over roughly half of the Strip, had so far adamantly refused to surrender its weapons. 

The Palestinian administrative committee (formally the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza) is one of the bodies created under the Board of Peace, the high powered controlling group led by US President Donald Trump, set up to oversee the ceasefire arrangements.

What is apparently on offer ​falls well short of the full disarmament and demilitarization specified in the Trump 20-point peace plan for Gaza, which requires Hamas’s military wing​ to be disarmed and disbanded.

The offer conveyed by the Hamas officials presupposes that both the Board of Peace and its Palestinian administrative committee are up and running.  That, however, is nowhere near the present position. While both bodies formally exist on paper and have begun limited activity, neither yet operates as a fully functioning, governing authority in Gaza. The Board of Peace is still consolidating its role and membership, while the Palestinian committee is only partially active.

The Board held a first convening session on February 19, at which members and observers pledged roughly 17 billion dollars in reconstruction funding (10 billion from the US, 7 billion from member states).  At that meeting Nickolay Mladenov, a Bulgarian politician who has been given the title of High Representative for Gaza, said the process of recruiting a new transitional Palestinian police force had begun and "just in the first few hours we have 2,000 people who have applied". 

That hopeful beginning did not lead on to a successful outcome. The plan envisaged a new 5,000-member police force operational in Gaza by late April, but recruitment proceeded at a snail’s pace because of the vetting required to exclude applicants with Hamas connections and past members of the security forces of the Palestinian Authority.  According to the most current assessment, the transitional Palestinian police force is not even close to being deployable.

Mladenov has said the Palestinian police force must be the primary law-and-order agency in Gaza, ​but supported by the International Stabilization Force (ISF), another body under the overall authority of the Board of Peace.  ​Created ​by UN Security Council Resolution 2803​, the ISF is described in the Gaza peace plan as a multinational agency charged with overseeing the disarmament of weaponized groups​ and ​liaising with both Israel and Egypt to ensure the security of Gaza.  ​It is intended to act in conjunction with the newly trained and vetted Palestinian police force.

​What of the Board of Peace?  It exists, and is functioning mainly as a diplomatic and financial coordinating body concerned with organizing pledge conferences, framework decisions and appointments, but it is not yet a fully operative administrative government in Gaza in the conventional sense. It is eventually envisaged as having sweeping legislative and executive authority over Gaza’s transition.

The top​ tier of the Board of Peace is composed of Trump and senior international figures, some named explicitly and others, at the moment, merely invited.  Among the named members are US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, former UK prime minister Tony Blair, and President of the World Bank Ajay Banga.  ​No less than ten heads of state have accepted the invitation to join the Board;  others are still considering.

Immediately beneath the top tier is the operational body known as the Gaza Executive Board.  Some members, like Witkoff, Kushner and Blair, are drawn from the main Board.  A whole range of others including diplomats, ministers and generals come from countries including Turkey, Qatar, Egypt and the Netherlands. It is described as in a “formation” phase.

Beneath the Executive Board is the 15-member Palestinian technocratic committee – one of the basic new bodies envisaged in the Gaza peace plan​. Explicitly described as “apolitical”, it is intended to stand apart from Hamas, Fatah and other factions, and its members are to be “independent technical experts” or “qualified” professionals, not party functionaries. The committee ​was to be the lowest tier of the new Gaza governance structure, tasked with day‑to‑day administration and service restoration. 

It has in fact been formally constituted, and is headed by Dr Ali Sha’ath, a former Palestinian Authority deputy minister.

The committee has issued a mission statement describing itself as ​charged with “restoring ​fundamental services” in Gaza and “rebuild​ing civil institutions,” with priority on security, electricity, water, healthcare, and education. Although ​it has indeed engaged in early administrative and planning work, so far it has had a minimal effect in control​ling Gaza’s territory, security, and political life.

 Not one of these bodies, however, from the Board of Peace down, is yet a fully empowered governing institution in Gaza. In fact there is no single Gazan authority that can say it has both the mandate and the tools – police, budget and bureaucracy – to govern in a comprehensive way.

The failure to disarm Hamas – let alone wrest the governance of nearly half of the Gaza Strip from its hands – inhibits all efforts to restore normality to the daily life of its inhabitants.  The possibility, yet to be tested, that Hamas is prepared to surrender its stock of small arms is encouraging, but the body it is prepared to deal with – the Palestinian administrative committee – is not yet fully functional.  

Has Gaza a hopeful future under the terms of Trump’s peace plan?

Confidence in a post-Hamas structure needs to be earned.  Mistrust in the imposed conditions of the peace plan could be allayed by providing greater transparency about the governance architecture, perhaps by inviting ​some appropriate Palestinian​s ​onto the Board of Peace.  Perhaps Gaza’s governance could eventually be linked to a wider national framework and future elections.  The partially operative institutions that already exist could play a constructive transitional role.

Gaza’s future may be on hold, but despite disruptive efforts like the Global Sumud Flotilla, happily scotched, the green shoots of hope have started to sprout.