Israel Intel. Reports that the PA , at war with Israel since October 2023, prepares to take over Gaza

Overview^[1]

• Hamas’ violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007 created a schism, the first of its kind, between the Palestinian Authority (PA) government in Judea and Samaria and the Hamas government in the Strip, initiating a continuing hostility between the sides despite attempts at reconciliation.
• The war that broke out with Hamas’ attack and massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023 provided the PA with an opportunity to reiterate its position that after the war, it should regain control of the Strip to create a geographic and political unity with Judea and Samaria ahead of the establishment of a Palestinian state. Senior PA figures stressed the position anew after the ceasefire that went into effect in the Gaza Strip in October 2025, and presented their own plans for the reconstruction of the Strip. Egypt and Qatar expressed support for the PA’s position.
• Hamas voiced its reservations about the PA’s return to the Gaza Strip, despite the movement’s declaration that it would relinquish control of the Strip. However, after talks between senior Hamas and PA figures in Cairo, Hamas began to moderate its position and publicly support the appointment of a PA government minister to head the future Palestinian committee to administer the Strip. The most-heard name to head the committee is Dr. Amjad Abu Ramadan, the PA minister of health and former mayor of Gaza.
• In ITIC assessment, the PA can be expected to play a significant role in the committee for administering the Strip, despite Israel’s public opposition and American ambiguity, as part of the understanding being formed by Fatah and Hamas, which seeks to demonstrate that it complies with the ceasefire terms. However, in all probability the dispute over the disarmament of Hamas and other “resistance” factions will continue, given Hamas’ refusal to disarm, directly opposed to the PA position that it should hold a monopoly on weapons. Therefore, in ITIC assessment, the tension between Hamas and the PA will most likely persist and make it difficult to find a political solution which would enable progress in the efforts to rehabilitate the Strip.

Background

• In June 2007, after Hamas’ violent takeover of the Gaza Strip, Mahmoud Abbas, the PA chairman, dissolved the Fatah-Hamas unity government and established an emergency government in Ramallah, while Hamas was left with its own government in the Gaza Strip. Thus, for the first time since the establishment of the PA in 1994, there were two separate governments, the PA government in Ramallah, which exercised control over territories in Judea and Samaria, and the Hamas government which controlled the Gaza Strip. Despite attempts to promote reconciliation between the rival sides, the schism continues.^[2]
• The war which followed Hamas’ terrorist attack and massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023 gave the PA leadership an opportunity to bring to the fore its position that the PA and the PLO were the official representatives of the Palestinians, and therefore the most appropriate bodies to administer the Strip after the war. Senior PA figures promoted the issue with Arab and international parties, emphasizing that the PA, which had always viewed the Gaza Strip as an integral part of a future Palestinian state, opposed the Israeli government’s plan to isolate Gaza, and regarded it as a deliberate Israeli measure to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and perpetuate the “Israeli occupation.”^[3]
• To strengthen the PA’s standing with the Palestinian public and the international community, especially with the United States and the European Union, which demanded comprehensive reforms in the Authority’s conduct, Mahmoud Abbas appointed Muhammad Mustafa to head a technocratic government in March 2024. According to its founding principles, the government regarded Judea and Samaria, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip as one political and geographic unit, with the PLO as its source of authority.^[4]
• Throughout the war, and especially given the American administration’s efforts to promote a ceasefire agreement to end the war, Mahmoud Abbas and senior PA figures reiterated their readiness to assume responsibility for the Gaza Strip:
  • At the end of the Arab emergency meeting on the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, held in Cairo on March 4, 2025, Muhammad Mustafa, PA prime minister, said the reconstruction of the Strip would be completed in cooperation with all the parties involved, and noted the need [sic] to unify the Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria. He said reconstruction would be carried out through an independent governmental system (Wafa, March 4, 2025). Hussein al-Sheikh, secretary of the PLO Executive Committee, said that during the transition period, until the PA assumed control over the Gaza Strip, a committee would be established, headed by a minister in the Palestinian government and the deputy prime minister (Mohamed Alghorani’s Facebook page, March 4, 2025).
  • Mundhir al-Hayek, Fatah spokesperson in the Gaza Strip, said that only national unity under the PA could restore political legitimacy to the Palestinians and oblige the international community to recognize the Palestinian National Authority as the sole sovereign and legal entity. He said that Fatah had submitted a detailed proposal to Egypt consisting of three stages: the return of PA civil and security control over the Gaza Strip according to the governance model in Judea and Samaria; the activation of aid, reconstruction and rehabilitation mechanisms as part of the restoration of civil and humanitarian order; and holding general elections in which the Palestinian people would democratically elect their leadership, thereby closing the chapter on Palestinian schism (Radio Alam, July 9, 2025).
  • On September 22, 2025, Mahmoud Abbas gave a speech at the conference in New York in support of the two-state solution, in which he outlined his “day after” vision for the Gaza Strip. He said the “State of Palestine” was the only source of governance and security in the Strip, and administration of the Strip should take place through a temporary administrative committee subordinate to the government in Ramallah, operating with Arab and international support and participation. He claimed Hamas would have no role in governance and it and other “factions”^[5] had to hand over their weapons to the PA, in the pursuit of one state, one law and one security. He said governance in the Gaza Strip after the war would adhere to the PLO’s political line and international commitments and would no longer rely on “militia organizations”^[6] (Wafa, September 22, 2025).
  • Speaking before the UN General Assembly, Mahmoud Abbas reiterated his statement that the PA was the only body authorized to bear full responsibility for governance and security through a temporary administrative committee headed by a PA minister, with Arab and international support and in coordination with the UN. At the same time, he promised internal PA and Gaza reforms, holding presidential and parliamentary elections within a year after the end of the war, drafting a temporary constitution within three months, and establishing a unified Palestinian state government (Wafa, September 25, 2025).

• The mediators also supported the PA’s position. Badr Abdelatty, the Egyptian foreign minister, said the Gaza Strip would be administered by 15 Palestinian technocrats under PA supervision for six months, noting the “unity” between the Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria (Sky News Arabia, August 12, 2025). He said his country had begun training 5,000 Palestinian police officers, in coordination with Jordan and the PA, to fill the security vacuum in the Gaza Strip after the end of the war. He added that the plan included deploying 5,000 more police officers on behalf of the PA (al-Sharq al-Awsat, August 13, 2025). Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, the prime minister of Qatar, said his country supported the PA’s being the sole body responsible for the Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria (CNN, November 4, 2025).

PA Activity after The Ceasefire

• According to the American “20-point plan” for the future of the Gaza Strip, a temporary transitional government based on a non-political Palestinian technocratic committee would administer the Strip’s day-to-day affairs after the war, with Hamas excluded from governance and required to disarm (White House, October 9, 2025). However, in the first stage of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, which went into effect on October 10, 2025, there was no specification of who would rule the Gaza Strip, an issue belonging only to the second stage of the agreement, which had not yet been negotiated.
• Immediately after the ceasefire went into effect, senior PA and PLO figures called for the PA to be granted responsibility for the Strip and for the technocratic committee which would administer the Gaza Strip during the interim period to be placed under its authority:
  • “Fatah figures” said the movement supported the establishment of a “professional administrative committee” for the Gaza Strip only if it was subordinate to the government of the “State of Palestine.” They warned against moves which would separate the Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria, and east Jerusalem, and against any attempt to impose foreign guardianship or mandate over the Palestinian people (Wafa, October 25, 2025).
  • Muhammad Mustafa, PA prime minister, said there was no need to look for alternatives to governance in the Strip: the basic principle was that the PA’s institutions should return to administer it. He said the Gaza Strip had to be fully managed by the PA, and any international force present had to be temporary and approved solely by the PA, with the foreign troops serving a complementary role (al-Arabiya, October 28, 2025). On another occasion, Mustafa said that some countries had made the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip a precondition for recognizing a Palestinian state, in reference to the fact that the main role in managing the Strip’s affairs would fall to the PA (al-Sharq al-Awsat, October 28, 2025).
  • Abdallah Kamil, a member of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council, said the PLO was the legitimate and sole representative of the Palestinian people, and any attempt to bypass the PLO or establish alternative frameworks would weaken the Palestinian position in the international arena. He claimed that Israel was working to separte the Palestinian space between the Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria, and east Jerusalem to widen division and eliminate the “national project.” He therefore called on Hamas to join the Palestinian national system and recognize the PLO and its political and legal commitments (Wafa, October 26, 2025).
  • Farsin Shahin, Palestinian foreign minister, said that currently the main challenge was to define the mandate and composition of the committee for administering the Gaza Strip, and expressed confidence that it would be headed by a representative of the PA, since the PLO held authority over the “occupied territories” (al-Arabiya, November 5, 2025).
  • Hussein al-Sheikh, PA deputy chairman, said the PA had full authority over the Gaza Strip, even if it was a transitional phase which to a political process preserving the two-state solution. He said they were coordinating with Arab and Islamic bodies to promote amendments to the American plan to ensure the geographic and political connection between the Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria. He added that they had proposed to Hamas that it hand over its weapons to the PA, as that was the only way to end the schism, but no agreement had yet been reached (Sky News Arabia, November 8, 2025).
• Alongside the declarations of intent to take control of the Gaza Strip, the PA also presented its own plans for the Strip’s reconstruction as part of its desire to be the leading power on the day after the war:
  • On October 16, 2025, Muhammad Mustafa, PA prime minister, hosted a meeting attended by about one hundred representatives of international institutions and UN bodies, members of the diplomatic corps and several ministers, during which the PA’s plan for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip was presented. The plan, to be implemented with Arab support and international assistance, is estimated to cost $67 billion and has 56 subprograms in 18 sectors, including housing, infrastructure, economy, social services and governance. The plan has three stages: an early recovery phase lasting six months at a cost of $3.5 billion, which will focus on debris removal and the restoration of basic infrastructure, temporary housing, economic support, revival of livelihoods for small businesses and agriculture, reactivation of the banking system, psychological and social support, education and health; a rehabilitation and sectoral recovery phase lasting three years and costing $30 billion; and a long-term construction phase. It was also noted that training programs for Palestinian police forces were continuing in cooperation with Egypt and Jordan. The PA government said it wanted to strengthen unified systems in the Gaza Strip and Judea and Samaria with transparency and institutional accountability, and to allow for a temporary international or regional presence approved by the UN Security Council. Muhammad Mustafa called on the international community to enable the plan, restore hope, dignity and stability to the Palestinian people (Wafa, October 16, 2025).

• • Ahed Beseiso, PA minister of public works and housing, presented a plan for an island off the coast of the Gaza Strip. He said the it would be constructed by recycling 60 million tons of debris created by the war to fill an area of 14 kilometers in the middle of the sea. He said the objective was to create a developed area for leisure tourism and employment opportunities for the Strip’s residents to support the local economy (Aram News, October 23, 2025).
  • The PA ministry of labor presented three new projects in the southern Gaza Strip, costing about €3.1 million, intended for approximately 1,082 beneficiaries among adults and skilled and unskilled workers in the private sector. Inas al-Atari, minister of labor, said the objective was to strengthen Gazan resilience by creating temporary and permanent employment opportunities and supporting the Palestinian economy. The three projects are a “decent jobs” facility in the Gaza Strip in cooperation with the UN Development Programme (UNDP), costing about $673,000; the Pathways to Employment in “Palestine” project funded by the Belgian agency Enabel at a cost of about €1.06 million, for 442 young men and women in education, health, and infrastructure sectors until March 2026; and a business recovery initiative funded by the International Labour Organization (ILO), costing about $1.34 million, providing support for 60 small businesses until June 2026 (Wafa, October 26, 2025).

Hamas’ Position

• Throughout the war, although Hamas claimed it was ready to relinquish control of the Gaza Strip, it has reservations about transferring responsibility for the Strip to the PA. For example, Bassem Na’im, a member of the Hamas political bureau, said the PA was unable to govern the Palestinian people in Judea and Samaria and was therefore too weak to take on that role in the Gaza Strip after the war (aljazeera.net, May 13, 2024).
• In October 2024, Fatah and Hamas, through Egyptian mediation, agreed to establish the Community Support Committee, a technocratic committee to administer the Gaza Strip composed of individuals unaffiliated with Palestinian “factions.” However, the talks on establishing the committee reportedly stalled because Hamas demanded that the committee be administratively and economically independent from the PA, a demand Fatah opposed (Sky News Arabia, October 9–11, 2024).
• After the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip went into effect, Hamas began taking steps to restore its civil and security governance, exploiting the governmental vacuum until the establishment of the technocratic committee.^[7] Hazem Qassem, Hamas spokesperson in the Gaza Strip, said the movement was not seeking to participate in administrative arrangements for governance after the fighting ended, and had agreed to the establishment of a community support and collection committee that would take the reins. He said the formation of the temporary committee should be expedited until an agreed administrative committee for the Strip was established, claiming that government bodies in Gaza continued to take steps to prevent “a dangerous vacuum” (al-Zuwaida Now Telegram channel, October 18, 2025).
• A meeting of Palestinian “factions” was held in Cairo, without Fatah (the main and leading force in the PLO and the PA), to discuss the “day after.” The sides supported transferring the administration of the Gaza Strip to a temporary Palestinian committee of independent technocrats from the Strip, which would be responsible for managing daily life and services in cooperation with Arab entities and international institutions. They also called on all factions to work together to unify their positions in order to agree on a national Palestinian strategy. However, the statement did not include any reference to the role of the PA in administering the Strip. “Palestinian sources” said the reason Fatah refused to participate in the Cairo meetings was its position that the PA was the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and therefore called on all factions and parties to take responsibility and end the schism.^[8]
• Although Fatah did not attend the meeting of the “factions,” there was in fact a meeting of a Hamas delegation led by Khalil al-Hayya, the head of its Political Bureau in the Gaza Strip; a PA delegation led by Hussein al-Sheikh, the deputy chairman of the PA and the PLO Executive Committee: and Majed Faraj, the head of Palestinian General Intelligence. A “Palestinian source familiar with the matter” said the meeting was positive and agreements were reached on certain issues, primarily the issue of administering the Gaza Strip and transferring its responsibilities to the PA (al-Sharq al-Awsat, October 24, 2025).
• Al-Sheikh said a basic agreement had been reached in the talks with Hamas in Cairo, according to which the administrative committee would be entirely Palestinian, regardless of whether it was composed of technocrats or independent figures without political affiliation. He added that they had also agreed that the committee would be headed by a minister from the PA government to preserve the geographic, demographic and political connection between Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip (Sky News Arabia, November 8, 2025).
• Confirmation of the above came from Hamas, as its senior figures publicly expressed willingness for the PA’s direct involvement in managing the Strip’s affairs:
  • Khalil al-Hayya, head of the Hamas political bureau, said Hamas had agreed with the “factions” and Fatah on the establishment of the committee and on the list of names presented by the mediators. He said the movement had told the mediators it was giving them the freedom to choose from among the Palestinian people those best suited to administer the Strip. He added that Hamas had no objection to any national figure residing in the Gaza Strip taking responsibility for its administration (Al Jazeera Mubasher, October 26, 2025).
  • Taher al-Nunu, adviser to the head the Hamas political bureau, said the movement had accepted Fatah’s proposal that the head of the committee be a minister from the PA, and the list of names had been submitted to the Egyptian leadership, which had the authority to select the committee members (al-Sharq al-Awsat, November 3, 2025).
  • Musa Abu Marzouq, deputy head for external relations, said Hamas had agreed that a minister from the PA would administer the Strip “for the benefit of the Palestinian people.” He added that all security arrangements in the Gaza Strip had to be exclusively Palestinian, under the leadership of a security mechanism managed by the Strip’s administrative council, adding there was a Palestinian consensus on the matter (al-Akhbar, November 4, 2025).

PA Candidates for Administering the Strip

• While forming the committee to administer the Gaza Strip continues, and in light of the apparent agreement between Hamas and Fatah that it would be headed by a minister from the PA, the leading candidate is Dr. Majed Abu Ramadan, the PA’s minister of health, who was mayor of Gaza from 2005 to 2008 and also headed the Association of Palestinian Local Authorities.^[9] An “official source in the Fatah movement” confirmed that one of the prominent candidates to head the committee was Abu Ramadan because he is a minister in the Palestinian government, a native of the Gaza Strip, and a national figure with high qualifications and experience (al-Sharq al-Awsat, November 3, 2025).

• Other names mentioned as possible candidates, although not members of the Palestinian government, were Faten Harb, the first woman in the Gaza Strip recognized as a mukhtar, a mother of four, an academic engaged in mediation initiatives on inheritance, divorce and family issues; Nasser al-Qudwa, former PA representative to the UN and foreign minister of the PA, and nephew of the late PA chairman Yasser Arafat; and Amjad al-Shawa, a human rights activist heading the Palestinian NGO Network. Al-Shawa denied having received an official approach to head the committee and said he was unaware of any such appointment, though he added he would be willing to take the position if Arab and Palestinian consensus were achieved (BBC Arabic, October 27, 2025).
• In August 2025, former senior PA official Samir Halayleh said that discussions had taken place to appoint him as governor of the Strip, and claimed that the proposal had been on the table for a year and a half. He said he had presented the proposal to Mahmoud Abbas and Muhammad Mustafa, and discussions were now taking place within the Palestinian leadership. He claimed Hamas had agreed to the proposal (Ma’an News Agency, August 12, 2025). However, an “official source in Mahmoud Abbas’s office” denied the reports of Halayleh’s appointment. He said the only body authorized to administer the Strip is the “State of Palestine,” represented by the government or by an administrative committee headed by a government minister. According to the “source,” any other approach deviated from the national line and aligned with the “occupation’s” intention to separate the Gaza Strip from Judea and Samaria and cause the “displacement” of its population (Wafa, August 12, 2025). As a result, Halayleh said he would not accept the role of administering the Strip if the PA opposed it, since it was “the body holding sovereignty and legitimacy” (al-Arabiya, August 12, 2025). It was reported later that the PA’s preventive security service had arrested Halayleh. “Legal sources” noted that the charges mainly concerned “incitement to conflicts,” in light of his statements regarding the possibility of assuming the role of governor (al-Sharq al-Awsat, September 11, 2025).

^[1] Click https://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en to subscribe and receive the ITIC’s daily updates as well as its other publications.
^[2] For further information, see the Jue 2007 ITIC report, After Hamas took over the Gaza Strip, Abu Mazen dissolved the Palestinian national unity government and established an emergency Fatah-affiliated government.
^[3] For further information, see the March 2024 ITIC report, The Palestinian perspective on alternatives for managing the Gaza Strip “the day after”
^[4] For further information, see the April 2024 ITIC report, The New Palestinian Authority Government
^[5] Terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza Strip.
^[6] Terrorist organizations.
^[7] For further information, see the October 2025 ITIC report, Hamas Activity to Restore Security Governance in the Gaza Strip after the Ceasefire and the November 2025 report, Hamas activity to restore its civilian governance In the Gaza Strip after the ceasefire
^[8] For further information, see the October 2025 ITIC report, Preparations for “the Day After” in the Gaza Strip: The Palestinian Organizations Meet in Cairo
^[9] For further information, see the April 2024 ITIC report, The New Palestinian Authority Government