The Arab states are putting forth a plan to counter President Trump’s plan to take over Gaza and send Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt. But the crux of the matter is the question of who will rule Gaza when the fighting stops. While Netanyahu has said there can be no role for the Palestinian Authority, the plan proposed by Egypt and the Arab states will no doubt give the PA a central role despite it lacking capabilities. Recently the Palestinian Authority engaged in a major six week campaign against Hamas and other terror groups in Jenin in the West Bank, but the campaign was not particularly successful and raises real questions about whether the PA could adequately secure Gaza. Most significantly the campaign suggests Palestinians will not be willing to go very far in fighting fellow Palestinians.
The Jenin operation "demonstrated the limits of the PA security forces,"Ghaith al-Omari, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy told the Washington Post. "If you cannot succeed decisively in an operation like Jenin, how can you hope to tackle the infinitely more complex situation in Gaza?" Mairav Zonszein, senior Israel analyst at the International Crisis Group told the Washington Post "If the end result is that everybody in the world – and especially the U.S. and the Arab countries – sees that the PA can't get control of 100 militants in Jenin, how can they secure Gaza?" In the battle the PA appears to have lost forces notwithstanding it has received over $1.1 billion from the US to train PA security forces, including training in Jordan.
There are suggestions that Egypt and the European Union will help the PA forces in Gaza, but will any of their soldiers really be prepared to die battling Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza? I don't see that as very likely, which means eventually Hamas will take over Gaza again, just as Hezbollah was able to effectively take over Lebanon, with a weak Lebanese government. Hamas has said it would not allow any non-Palestinian party to enter Gaza. It's hard to see how any Arab country will agree to play any role in the administration of Gaza as long as Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups continue to maintain an armed presence there. As Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh has written recently, "Any deal that allows Hamas to remain in power would be disastrous for Israel, the Palestinians, and Arab states threatened by the Iran-led "Axis of Resistance." He concludes, "There should be no reconstruction of Gaza as long as Iran's proxies remain in power. The idea of allowing the Palestinian Authority to return to Gaza as a civilian body that pays salaries and funds projects should be rejected by the Trump administration."
A report in Israel Hayom by Danny Zaken says that Saudi Arabia and the UAE refuse to participate financially or practically in Egypt's plan for Gaza's reconstruction unless it is guaranteed that Hamas will not be part of the governing body and will surrender its weapons.But Egypt has attempted to argue that integrating Hamas members into governance could help "tame" the group, but they were met with the question if they succeeded in "taming" the Muslim Brotherhood, el-Sisi's main opposition in Egypt.
Additionally, it is to be noted that although the PA has told the US that it will end the "pay for slay" payments, and not direct payments to the families of terrorists, it appears this is mere words. As Khaled Abu Toameh has posted on X, President Mahmoud Abbas told the Fatah Revolutionary Council on Feb. 20: "If we had one penny left, it will go the martyrs and prisoners. They will receive their full payments, as in the past. We are proud of their sacrifices." Khaled Abu Toameh has also posted on X that The PA has instructed Palestinian media to delete the part of Abbas's speech where he says payments to the "prisoners and martyrs" will continue.
It is the case that in all other war zones except Gaza, civilians have always been able to flee to other countries. I have no doubt that given the option, many Gazans would choose to leave Gaza voluntarily now, but it does not appear that this option will be given to them by the surrounding Arab states. It is interesting to note that Qatar in particular is the one that has bankrolled Hamas’s leaders for years, such that Hamas could allocate its funds to build an underground tunnel nextwork, rather than improve the lives of Gazans. Qatar now is not willing to take in Gazans to live there, even though it is responsible for sustaining Hamas rule in Gaza.
