The US announced phase two of the ceasefire mid-January. The reality is that most of the goals that were supposed to have been achieved in order to reach phase two have not been reached, namely a halt to violence, Israeli withdraw to the yellow line, and full resumption of aid. In fact, the only goal that has been achieved is the return of all the Israeli hostages.
Phase one has not delivered, definitely not for Palestinians. But what marked this transition into phase two was the announcement of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza. It’s a fifteen-member body chaired by Dr Ali Shaath, an engineer who is originally from Gaza and has worked for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank in various capacities.
In the grand scheme of things, this committee signals a shift toward depoliticized governance in Gaza amid the ongoing genocide. It is being presented as a neutral, technocratic governing structure, but the reality is that it’s going to function as a managerial mechanism that stabilizes conditions. This committee has been tasked with managing the reconstruction of service provision in Gaza, under the watchful eyes of Mladenov and Blair, who are going to report directly to Trump.
There are a lot of things that still remain unclear about the committee and how it’s going to be able to carry out this work. The issue of Israeli withdrawal to the yellow line is unclear, for example. For now, the committee is supposed to be operating in the western part of Gaza, the part that doesn’t really have the presence of Israeli forces. But at this stage, it still hasn’t been allowed into Gaza by the Israelis.
The US approach is to completely depoliticize the issue of Palestine and turn it into an economic or real estate issue.
What is very clear is that this committee is not going to have any kind of political function. There was an interview where the chair was explicitly asked about Israeli forces and the disarmament of Hamas — he…
Auteur: Yara Hawari
