What’s In The Arab Plan For Gaza?

If the Arab world acts decisively to sideline Hamas, the organization’s financial, logistical, and public support may erode significantly.

The highly anticipated Egyptian vision for the future of Gaza was announced in Cairo yesterday, broadcasting consensus across the Arab world against U.S. president Donald Trump’s “Riviera” plan for Gaza.

There is little in the Arab draft proposal that has not been floated previously. Unsurprisingly, and where it challenges Trump head on, is that it calls for reconstruction without the displacement of the Gazan population. While the plan displays a readiness to sideline Hamas, its shortcoming is that it leaves too much unsaid about how Hamas can be militarily dismantled, removed, or transformed. With this left unaddressed, it will face stiff resistance from the United States and Israel.

The fact that the emergency Arab summit took place a full month after the Trump plan was announced is just one indication of the complexities inherent to achieving Arab consensus on this point. The Egyptian draft, while significant for its plan to reconstruct war-torn Gaza by 2030, falls short of specifying how Hamas would be removed. At the same time, it proposes the establishment of a body called the “Gaza Administrative Committee” to run the Strip’s affairs in the first six months of the “early recovery” period, made up of independent Palestinian technocrats.

But any plan that calls for the building of “an airport, a fishing port and a commercial port” is not viable as long as Hamas retains monopoly over the use of violence in Gaza. The plan’s lack of specificity is deliberate, leaving the possibility open to negotiations that could firm up broader buy-in. However, too many unanswered questions can pave the way for spoilers as well.

That there are cracks in the Arab world on the question of Hamas is not a revelation. There is no love lost between Hamas and the leaders of many Arab states. Yet, to declare this when pro-Palestinian sentiment runs high in the Muslim world has been treated as a disproportionately costly choice by most leaders. For others in the Middle East, there may be value in retaining Hamas as a threat to Israel.

While some Arab officials have reportedly said behind the scenes that Hamas may be persuaded to cede control over the Strip, they will not agree to voluntarily demobilize militarily. Some senior Arab officials have called on Hamas to step down, including the Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit, who on February 11 called on Hamas to relinquish power in Gaza “if the Palestinian interest requires it.”

On March 2, Majed al-Ansari, who serves as an adviser to Qatar’s prime minister and as foreign affairs ministry spokesperson, said that on the future of Hamas, “It’s up to the Palestinian people on the ground…We have to give agency to the Palestinian people. You can’t decide on their behalf.” The caveat is hard to reconcile with the hardship faced by the Gazans today and the near impossibility of expressing public opinion freely without fear of retribution by Hamas.

Palestinians At A Crossroads

As for internal debates inside Hamas, a divide exists between the political leadership in exile and the military arm of Hamas in Gaza, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. The exiled leadership is reportedly more agreeable to taking a backseat if this will bring a peace dividend, while the military arm is more eager to prepare for a new fight with Israel.

For its part, the Palestinian Authority resists any attempt to grant Hamas a foothold in the postwar governance of Gaza. However, it must demonstrate its own capacity to govern. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he was “prepared to have general elections in the coming year” once conditions would allow it.

Hamas has vested interests in upholding the ceasefire deal on its own terms: capturing a greater portion of the humanitarian aid, holding on to hostages for as long as it wants to prolong its leverage, and securing the release of more Palestinian prisoners. But if Hamas does not step down, the IDF may launch a major operation in Gaza to prevent Hamas from re-establishing its control over most parts of the enclave.

If Israel reinvades Gaza, another round of civilian displacement there would create an unimaginable toll on the Gazan people and would arguably damage any residual goodwill some Palestinians may have in Hamas’s ability to protect them. For some, the opposite would be true, that the militant group’s popularity would grow as it would become plain as day that Israel is not committed to ending the conflict. But another displacement of Gazans would outweigh any political calculation that could benefit Hamas in the short to medium term.

What Can The Arab World Do Now?

The reconstruction of Gaza is a task of an enormous magnitude, with the UN estimating a cost of $53.2 billion over the next ten years. Unless Hamas’ military mobilization in Gaza concludes, not only will multilateral aid not flow in, but several Arab leaders will also refuse to donate funds.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty recently said that an urgent ministerial meeting in Saudi Arabia of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation would soon follow, with the aim of securing buy-in from international donors. Clearly, the Arab plan seeks to “internationalize” Gaza reconstruction through burden-sharing that displaces full responsibility away from the Arab world.

International and regional donors must make it clear that Hamas cannot be trusted with governing authority or security provision during the reconstruction and recovery phase of Gaza. This will be a way of holding Hamas accountable for its despicable actions on October 7 and signal to the Palestinians that donor states are drawing a line between the Palestinians as a people with inalienable right to self-determination, on one hand, and Hamas as a militant organization, on the other.

The prospect of peace has always presented Hamas with an existential threat, since it sees armed struggle as the source of its political legitimacy. There needs to be a paradigm shift in how the Arab world responds to Hamas, and the Egypt plan can spark this. Although as it stands, it does not go far enough.

But if the Arab world acts decisively to sideline Hamas, the organization’s financial, logistical, and public support may erode significantly over the proposed three-to-five year reconstruction period. For this to be achieved, the Arab world and its allies must make certain commitments to Palestinian political agency, such as supporting the Palestinian Authority so that it can hold elections and gain credibility and capacity.

There also needs to be deradicalization initiatives that show Palestinian youth that an alternative to armed resistance is not only theoretically possible, but within reach. The prospect of economic prosperity will matter, and as conditions in Gaza improve, the divide between the political leadership and remaining armed wing of Hamas may grow, with the latter further losing legitimacy.

Israeli thinking would also need to change. Hamas feeds off chronic disillusionment among Palestinians that argues there is no alternative future other than the one Hamas has carved out. If Israel were willing to support an alternative vision for the Palestinians, this would go a long way to decouple Hamas’s ideology and methods from the presumption that only Hamas can defend the rights of Palestinian civilians. If Arab states exert the right kind of leverage, the dynamics may begin to shift.