Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh and his government tendered their resignations to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday, in what many observers regard as the first step towards forming a new technocratic Palestinian administration to govern the Palestinian territories and to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza after Israel’s war to root out Hamas from the besieged enclave comes to an end.
“The decision to resign came in light of the unprecedented escalation in the West Bank and Jerusalem and the war, genocide, and starvation in the Gaza Strip,” Shtayyeh said in his announcement noting that “the next stage and its challenges require new governmental and political arrangements that take into account the new reality in Gaza and the need for a Palestinian-Palestinian consensus based on Palestinian unity and the extension of unity of authority over the land of Palestine.”
Mohammad Mustafa has now been appointed as the Prime minister, a former World Bank official and chairman of the Palestine Investment Fund
What is driving this shakeup?
The resignation of Shtayyeh and his government constitutes “a complete cabinet reshuffle,” Tahani Mustafa, a senior Palestine Analyst at the International Crisis Group, tells TIME—one that she says can be read as an attempt to appease calls by the U.S. and others for the creation of a “revitalized Palestinian Authority,” under which Gaza and the West Bank can be reunited under a single governance structure after the war.
Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to Britain, told journalists on Tuesday that the formation of a new government represents a bid to “start afresh in the interest of the unity of the Palestinian people,” adding that it will not include any political factions. “This is not the time for political factions,” he says. “This is the time for the Palestinian people.”
Is Hamas expected to have a role in the new government
The new technocratic government is expected to be made up of independent figures who are not affiliated with any Palestinian factions, including Hamas. As such, the International Crisis Group’s Mustafa says, the formation of the new government will not be determined by the militant group, nor will it involve any of its members.
“The international community have made it very clear that they will not engage in any kind of high-level diplomacy with Hamas,” Mustafa says, “so the idea of having them involved in any kind of government is just not even a workable proposition right now.” However, Mustafa adds that there is an expectation that former Hamas civil servants in Gaza will invariably be involved in the day-to-day governance of the Strip, on the condition that those individuals have no involvement in Hamas’s military wing.
Israel’s response
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the prospect of the Palestinian Authority having any role in Gaza after the war. Instead, he has offered up [his own vision for the so-called “day after” the war, which proposes Israel maintaining indefinite control over the West Bank and Gaza, thus neutering the possibility of the establishment of a Palestinian state (which the Israeli government also rejects).
Having a week of lectures dedicated to this issue, I see this as very concerning. Israel’s decision not to recognise the Palestinian territory and controlling it poses the risk of continued oppression of Palestinians and more land grabs. Whilst Israel needs to ensure security guarantees for its own people, this decision is likely to stoke up more frustration and violence