Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated in a statement Monday that “there will be neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority” in Gaza after the war there ends, responding to unconfirmed Arab media reports that the terror group had agreed to hand over the reins of the Strip to the West Bank-based PA.
According to Sky News Arabia, Hamas made the decision under pressure from Egypt, a mediator of the terror group’s month-old truce and hostage deal with Israel.
Responding to the reports, Netanyahu spokesman Omer Dostri wrote on X: “Not going to happen.”
In a later statement, Netanyahu also said that he was “committed to US President Trump’s plan” to oust Gaza’s roughly two million residents and rebuild the Strip.
An Israeli official told The Times of Israel on Monday that Israel would not let Hamas stay in Gaza under any circumstances, whether through negotiations or by other means. The official reiterated that Israel was “embracing with both hands” Trump’s plan for Gaza, adding that emigration from the Strip would be voluntary.
“Our goal is to allow the creation of an infrastructure to enable Gazans to leave, and we assess that many will leave,” said the official. “We are trying in the near term to implement [Trump’s] vision and lay out technical, operational and practical details.”
Trump announced his proposal for Gaza on February 4 during a joint press conference at the White House with Netanyahu, who has applauded the plan as “revolutionary.” The plan has met with backlash from the Muslim and Arab worlds as well as some Western allies of both Washington and Jerusalem.
Last month, after Israel and Hamas signed the ceasefire deal, PA President Mahmoud Abbas said Ramallah was ready to assume “full authority” when the ceasefire takes effect.
Before Trump’s proposal, Netanyahu had publicly ruled out any postwar role for either Hamas or the PA in Gaza but otherwise failed to specify who he wanted to see rule the Strip after the war.
While Hamas officials have said in the past that the terror group would be willing to lay down its arms if a Palestinian state were established, there has been no indication that it is prepared to do so as part of the current Gaza hostage-ceasefire deal.
In July, three officials told The Times of Israel that Netanyahu had privately entertained a postwar role for the PA in Gaza. The White House, under then-US president Joe Biden, had advocated for the PA to take the reins in Gaza provided the unpopular body would be “revamped.”
Netanyahu’s allies have cast the PA as essentially indistinguishable from Hamas and rejected any role for it in Gaza. Israel has long accused the PA of supporting terrorism in its education system and through the payment of stipends to Palestinian security detainees and their families.
Last week, Abbas signed a decree ending the so-called pay-to-slay laws, but Israel dismissed the move as a “new fraudulent exercise” by Ramallah.
The Kan public broadcaster reported on Monday that the decision has not yet been implemented and stipends have been transferred as usual despite Abbas’s decree.
The report cited Palestinian sources as saying that the decision had not been passed on to the PA’s finance ministry, so the money went through, as usual, this month in the absence of new instructions.
The sources were quoted as assessing that the change would come into effect next month.
Abbas severed ties with the US after Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2017, less than a year after taking office. The US proceeded to broker the Abraham Accords, while the Palestinians were left out of the process.
The reports on Hamas’s willingness to cede control of Gaza to the PA came during the first stage of a shaky hostage-ceasefire deal between the terror group and Israel that came into effect in January, bringing a halt to over a year of fighting in Gaza, triggered by the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, onslaught.
Trump’s Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff said Sunday that while difficulties remain in negotiations for the continuation of the ceasefire, the second stage of the hostage deal is “absolutely going to begin.”
He also noted that the second phase deals with both a permanent end to the war and “Hamas not being involved in the government and being gone from Gaza.”
The deal itself does not stipulate that Hamas will no longer be in power at the end of phase two, but both the Biden and Trump administrations have said they would not accept such a result, as has Israel.
Jacob Magid and AFP contributed to this report.