People chant slogans during a pro-Palestinian protest
| Photo Credit: AP

Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party have agreed to create a committee to jointly run post-war Gaza, negotiators from both sides said Tuesday (December 3, 2024).

Under the plan, which needs Abbas’s approval, the committee would be composed of 10 to 15 non-partisan figures with authority on matters related to the economy, education, health, humanitarian aid and reconstruction, according to a draft of the proposal seen by AFP.

Hamas Fatah meeting in Egypt

Following talks in Cairo brokered by Egypt, the two rival factions agreed the committee would administer the Palestinian side of the Rafah checkpoint on the border with Egypt — the territory’s only crossing not shared with Israel.

Fatah’s delegation, led by central party committee member Azzam al-Ahmad, would return on Tuesday to Ramallah to seek Abbas’s final approval, negotiators from both sides told AFP.

The Hamas delegation was headed by politburo member Khalil al-Hayya.

The initiative comes at a time of renewed diplomatic efforts to end the Gaza war, which was sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

These efforts, led by the United States together with Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, come nearly a week after a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah came into force in Lebanon.

Rivalry between Hamas and Fatah

Hamas and Fatah have been bitter rivals since Hamas fighters ejected Fatah from the Gaza Strip after deadly clashes that followed Hamas’s resounding victory in a 2006 election.

Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007, while the secularist Fatah movement controls the Palestinian Authority and has partial administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

As US President Joe Biden’s administration prepares to hand over power in January to president-elect Donald Trump, Palestinians face intense US pressure to ensure Hamas will have no role in Gaza once the war ends.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, one of the most right-wing in Israel’s history, made Hamas’s destruction in Gaza one of its main war objectives.

It also has repeatedly expressed strong opposition to the Palestinian Authority playing any role in the Gaza Strip after the war.

Hamas’s October 7 attack resulted in 1,208 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has resulted in at least 44,466 deaths, also mostly civilians, according to data from Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry, which the UN considers reliable.