As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to meet with President Trump on Monday, new proposals for ending the Gaza war and governing the territory afterward are circulating. One central question surrounds whether the Palestinian Authority would play any role.
The Authority administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and considers itself the rightful government of any future Palestinian state.
What is the Palestinian Authority?
The Palestinian Authority was established in 1994 as a result of the Oslo Accords, a series of agreements signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. It was intended as a temporary administration on the way to what many hoped would be the eventual creation of an independent Palestinian state.
It administers areas of the West Bank where Palestinians live and cooperates with Israel on security. But relations with Israel have been fraught.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, delivered a video address to the U.N. General Assembly last week in which he accused Israel of committing “war crimes” in Gaza.
He spoke by video because the Trump administration denied him and his delegation entry visas to attend the General Assembly in New York on national security grounds.
Who is Mahmoud Abbas?
Mr. Abbas, 89, has been president of the Palestinian Authority since 2005. He was first elected to a four-year term, but there have been no Palestinian national elections since 2006.
Critics say the administration under Mr. Abbas’s leadership is corrupt and authoritarian. Recent opinion polls have shown that most Palestinians want him to resign.
Israeli officials have long accused the Authority of mismanagement and fomenting hostility toward Israel.
“The Palestinian Authority is corrupt to the core,” Mr. Netanyahu said in his own address to the U.N. last week.
Supporters of the Palestinian Authority say it is not more corrupt than other governments in the Arab world and that the Israeli occupation hampers its ability to succeed.
What does recognition of a Palestinian state mean?
This month, a number of countries, including Israeli allies France, Britain and Canada, recognized Palestinian statehood. They joined nearly 150 nations that have recently recognized a Palestinian state or are expected to do so soon.
The move, while mostly a symbolic act supporting Palestinian self-determination, deepened the isolation of Israel. Both Israel and its allies in Washington oppose the recognition of Palestinian statehood, describing it as a reward for Hamas, the Islamist group that has long controlled Gaza and which led the 2023 attack on Israel that set off the Gaza war.
Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are rivals for leadership of the Palestinian people.
Israeli officials, angered by the recent international endorsements of Palestinian statehood, have suggested that Israel could annex at least part of the occupied West Bank in retaliation.
But Mr. Trump said last week that he would not allow Israel to do that.
What role could the Palestinian Authority play in a postwar Gaza?
Any effort to end the war in Gaza still faces significant obstacles. Israel and Hamas are at odds over central sticking points, and Israel escalated its military campaign in recent weeks with a ground offensive to take over Gaza City.
Mr. Abbas has called Gaza an integral part of a future Palestinian state, and said last week that his government was willing to take responsibility for the enclave. He pledged that Hamas would have no part in governing the territory after the war ends.
Among several new proposals to end the fighting in Gaza and oversee the territory afterward, one proposes that the Palestinian Authority would have a limited role in governing.
But given the criticisms of the Authority as corrupt, this proposal calls for significant changes to the body, including its security practices.
Another proposal, known as the New York declaration, suggests that postwar Gaza could be governed by a transitional committee operating under the umbrella of the Palestinian Authority, which would hold elections within a year of a cease-fire.
Hamas said on Sunday that it had not received any new proposals from mediators and that negotiations for a cease-fire in Gaza are at a standstill.
What is the Palestinian Authority’s relationship with Hamas?
A deep feud has long divided the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.
In 2006, Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections, narrowly defeating Mr. Abbas’s rival Fatah movement. The following year, Hamas violently ousted the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority from the Gaza Strip, seizing full control.
Various attempts at reconciliation between the factions have failed.
Mr. Abbas has condemned the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, and says Palestinians want a modern state and a peaceful transition of power. There is no place for an armed Hamas in that vision, he said, calling on the group to lay down its weapons.
Hamas rejected Mr. Abbas’s assertion that the group would have no role in a Gaza government after the war, calling it “an infringement on our Palestinian people’s inherent right to self-determination.”
Hamas also said it will not lay down its weapons “as long as the occupation continues.”
Ephrat Livni contributed reporting.
Talya Minsberg is a Times reporter covering breaking and developing news.
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