Gaza After Hamas

Without a reformed Palestinian Authority presence in Gaza, Hamas will continue to rule the Strip.

Last month’s ceasefire was a crucial step toward the release of dozens of hostages held by Hamas and a permanent end to the war in Gaza, which has thus far killed an estimated 46,000 Palestinians and more than 2,000 Israelicivilians and soldiers. Once all remaining living hostages have been freed and reunited with their families, the outstanding challenge will be determining who is going to govern post-war Gaza.

Top negotiators likely assessed that the deal had a better chance of bringing living hostages home if thornier issues like reconstruction, governance, and economic recovery were left for later stages of the ceasefire discussions. However, that leaves unanswered the question that policymakers have been wrestling with for the past fifteen months: who or what comes after Hamas?

There remain several challenges to instituting new governance in Gaza. Among them is the enduring Hamas presence in the Strip, vehement distrust of the Palestinian Authority (PA) from both Israelis and Palestinians, though for vastly different reasons, and concerted efforts by members of the Israeli government to actively prevent the PA from governing effectively.

Rather than contributing to discussions on how to facilitate post-war governance, members of the Israeli Far Right, like former Minister of Defense Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, are backing President Donald Trump’s suggestion to “clean out” Gaza and temporarily, or even permanently, relocate some 1.5 million Palestinians to neighboring Egypt and Jordan.

President Trump even went so far as to state during a recent joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “the U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip [after the war]” and develop it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

As a key player in the Israel-Gaza ceasefire negotiation process, the United States should take advantage of existing diplomatic channels to convince Jerusalem that it is in Israel’s best interest to allow a reformed PA to govern post-war Gaza rather than advocating for the forced deportation of two million civilians from their homes.

Such a policy would not only add fuel to the existing drivers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but also sanction the Israeli far-right’s push for permanentJewish resettlement of Gaza. To facilitate a successful and peaceful transition, the United States should instead work with its Gulf partners and other Arab allies to lead a multinational peacekeeping and stabilization effort in Gaza, which can both monitor the terms of the ceasefire and oversee PA reform to ensure it is capable of assuming full responsibility for the Strip.

Should the United States fail to take these steps, it is likely to see a swift and organized Hamas resurgence in Gaza and recurring episodes of violence.

Despite over a year of heavy fighting aimed at stripping Hamas of its political and military power, al-Qassam Brigades militants are currently patrolling Gaza’s streets by the thousands. The terms of the ceasefire deal allow Hamas police forces to resume basic law enforcement duties—managing law and order, securing aid convoys, and overseeing the return of civilians to northern Gaza—but fail to specify who will assume responsibility for the territory in the long-term and how they will do it.

Absent a Palestinian Authority (PA) presence in Gaza, Hamas can and will continue to regenerate and fill security vacuums as they open up in post-war Gaza. Therefore, negotiators should be thinking about issues of post-war governance as critical to the immediate security of both Palestinian and Israeli civilians. As phase two’s negotiations begin in early February, these difficult conversations on governance should be prioritized to alleviate humanitarian suffering, prevent anarchy from creating even greater security and logistical challenges, and eliminate Hamas’s ability to solidify control over what remains of Gaza’s institutions.

Without a swift and targeted effort to replace Hamas with an alternative body capable of governing, Israel’s efforts to eliminate threats to its domestic population and its broader regional security would have been in vain. Israel must allow the PA to retake control of Gaza so that it can fill the space currently occupied by Hamas with a civil administration able to provide basic services, oversee reconstruction efforts, and de-escalate ongoing cycles of violence.

The new Trump administration has a role to play here as well in convincing the Israelis that of all the difficult choices regarding governance in post-war Gaza, supporting PA reform is the least bad of many unpalatable options. The United States and other Western leaders must also convince Israel that it is in Jerusalem’s best interest not to deprive the PA of the resources or legitimacy required to govern effectively in both Palestinian territories.

However, the PA must undergo significant reforms to restore Palestinians’ trust in their government and create a representative, civilian-led administration that can succeed Hamas and reunite Gaza with the West Bank. In its current form, the PA—led by its aging president, Mahmoud Abbas—is barely capable of managing escalating tensions in the West Bank, let alone rebuilding thedevastated Gaza Strip after fifteen months of war.

The United States’ role in backing PA reform now should be to pressure Abbas—whose four-year term was set to end in 2009—to resign and allow a new administration to step in and take charge. This will not only add legitimacy to the PA reform process writ large but also may open up opportunities to recalibrate the PA’s historically shaky relationship with Israel.

To support the PA as it makes critical reforms and reenters Gaza for the first time in nearly 18 years, the United States and its Gulf partners can and should play a key role in organizing a short-term, international peacekeeping and stabilization mission, which could also effectively monitor the terms of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

A multinational force—aided by local Palestinian partners and Gulf backers—can serve as the central coordinator for rebuilding basic infrastructure, securing and distributing aid, and directing recovery efforts, thus significantly restricting Hamas’s ability to loot aid convoys, extort civilians for control over limited resources, and smuggle weapons into the strip.

Any interim force that enters Gaza should do so on a fixed-term mandate—with the understanding that its goal is to stabilize conditions on the ground until the PA can assume full responsibility for reconstruction efforts. This would prevent any participating coalition states—including the United States—from being seen as occupiers of Palestinian land.

To permanently remove Hamas from power, the United States must work alongside its Arab and Israeli partners to support the PA’s return to Gaza. While doing so will involve backing substantial PA reforms, organizing billions of dollars in relief aid, and providing significant logistical support to Ramallah, allowing the PA to retake control of Gaza is crucial to displacing Hamas and improving the lives of millions of Palestinians. Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken laid out a similar proposal in a speech at the Atlantic Council on January 14.

He correctly pointed out that some U.S. partners—including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan—have stated that they will not agree to participate in a Gaza peacekeeping operation unless Gaza and the West Bank were “reunified under a reformed PA as part of a pathway to an independent Palestinian state.” Blinken continued, stating that: “Reaching agreements will require all parties to summon the political will to make hard decisions [and] to make hard compromises.”

One of those hard decisions will be deciding who governs post-war Gaza, and the answer to that question will hopefully relieve humanitarian suffering in Gaza and assuage fears about the future security of Israelis and Palestinians alike.

Delaney Soliday is a research assistant with the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. Prior to joining CNAS, she was a research assistant for the Jeanette and Eli Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. She holds a BA in Global Affairs from George Mason University. Her language skills include both English and Arabic.

Image: Mohammad Abu Elsebah / Shutterstock.com.