Gaza technocratic panel meets for first time, as officials fear it’s hobbled from get-go
Members of the National Committee for the Administration of the Gaza Strip (NCAG) held their first meeting on Thursday in Cairo, an Arab diplomat told The Times of Israel.
The 15-member committee of Palestinian technocrats, headed by former Palestinian Authority deputy minister Ali Shaath, were joined by Nikolay Mladenov, who will be overseeing their work on behalf of the Board of Peace headed by US President Donald Trump.
The committee also held a FaceTime call with Trump’s top aides Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, who have led the administration’s Gaza policy, the diplomat said.
Mladenov is working with various stakeholders in the region to help secure a package of steps aimed at alleviating the Gaza humanitarian crisis, in order to boost NCAG’s legitimacy coming out of the gate, according to the diplomat
However, the diplomat said the effort has been marred by Israeli opposition.
“The technocratic committee is just a group of 15 people. They need civil servants. But right now Israel is blocking both those on the Hamas payroll as well as those on the PA payroll,” the Arab diplomat said.
“The same is the case for police. If Israel doesn’t want those tied to the PA, what’s left are the ones on the Hamas payroll,” the Arab diplomat said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has had an extremely adversarial relationship with the PA, likening the Ramallah-based governing body to Hamas and withholding several billion dollars worth of its funds, while arguing that it incites against Israel.
A US official confirmed the Israeli opposition to even lower-level PA involvement in the management of Gaza but said the issue would be addressed in the coming weeks, adding that the meeting in Cairo was more aimed at “setting the tone for the work that lies ahead.”
The US official said that if mediators are able to make progress on disarming Hamas — which Washington thinks is possible — then Israel will be more flexible regarding a role for the Palestinian Authority in Gaza.
But talks with Hamas on disarmament are still in their initial stages, US officials acknowledged during a briefing on Wednesday.
The Arab diplomat said the NCAG will have more room to work once the Board of Peace responsible for overseeing the technocratic body is unveiled, which the US is aiming to do next week on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The Times of Israel reported last month that the US had informed interlocutors that it secured commitments from Egypt, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany to have their leaders join Trump on the Board of Peace.
The US was seeking to more than double that number, but was having limited success to date, a senior Arab diplomat said last week, adding that Washington is considering filling spots on the panel with the heads of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Economic Forum.
But briefing reporters on Wednesday, a US official was bullish about the Board of Peace’s makeup, saying that Trump was personally involved in selecting who would receive an invitation to join him on the panel. The official added that invitations were sent out earlier in the day to “a lot of countries” and that “there has been a very overwhelming response.”
As for the NCAG, the US official said that its 15 members would be unveiled in the coming days. All of them are originally from Gaza, and the panel will operate from the Strip, but not all of them have been based there more recently.
Shaath has been living in the West Bank and had to travel to Thursday’s Cairo meeting via Jordan.
However, he was held up by Israeli authorities at the West Bank’s Allenby Crossing for over six hours on Wednesday, a Palestinian official told The Times of Israel.
The incident demonstrated Israel’s desire to sabotage the technocratic committee’s work, the Palestinian official alleged, adding that it also highlighted the extent to which Israel controls the lives of Palestinians.
A spokesperson for Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority declined requests for comment.
In his first interview since being revealed as the NCAG chairman, Shaath told a local Palestinian radio station that the committee’s top priority is to provide temporary housing to the majority of Gaza’s population of two million people who have been displaced by the war.
Hundreds of thousands of them are living in tents, many of which have not held up amid the winter conditions.
Shaath said the committee’s next goal would be the rehabilitation of basic infrastructure, followed by the reconstruction of homes and buildings.
On the question of the vast amounts of rubble left from Gaza’s destroyed buildings, Shaath floated the idea of pushing it into the adjacent Mediterranean Sea to reclaim land.
A civil engineer, Shaath predicted that the rubble clearing could be completed within three years and that the full reconstruction of Gaza could be done in seven.
Agencies contributed to this report.
