Hamas's media office in Gaza announced Monday that the group's emergency government committee will be dissolved, clearing the way, at least on paper, for a technocratic committee to take over management of the Strip. Israeli officials and the Board of Peace overseeing Gaza's transition are unimpressed, calling the announcement a meaningless spin designed to buy time.
The Gaza government media office said in a statement that the chairman of the emergency committee has submitted his resignation ahead of transferring management of the Strip to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza. The statement said technical and professional level staff would remain in their positions to ensure continued services to residents, that heads of current government institutions would serve as a temporary body during the transition period, and that all employees would continue carrying out their duties under the authority of the national committee.
Senior Israeli officials pushed back hard on the announcement, telling Yedioth Ahronoth correspondent Itamar Eichner that it amounts to nothing more than meaningless spin and a stalling tactic meant to allow the technocratic committee to enter Gaza on terms that suit Hamas. The officials said Israel had already received indications from sources inside Gaza a day earlier that the move was coming, but that Palestinian sources described it as a purely symbolic step intended to create the appearance of progress for mediators. In practice, the officials said, every official is staying in place and Hamas continues to run the show from behind the scenes, with the move designed specifically to let the technocratic committee in on conditions convenient for Hamas.
The Board of Peace, the body established under the Trump administration's Gaza framework, also responded to the announcement, saying it had taken note of the reported dissolution of the emergency committee but that its own assessment would be based on actions rather than promises when it comes to meeting the essential needs of Gaza's residents. The board said any decisions must be comprehensive and must meet the requirements laid out in the roadmap for advancing governance, security, and the governing transition in Gaza, and that it expects the completion of discussions on that roadmap, including the implementation mechanisms needed to allow the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza to assume full governing authority.
The board reiterated what it described as its central unchanged principle: one authority, one law, and one gun, meaning the concentration of all weapons under the control of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, as set out in the comprehensive peace plan for Gaza and in UN Security Council Resolution 2803. It said any genuine transfer of authority must allow the national committee to exercise its mandate independently, including making the administrative and governing decisions entrusted to it.
