By Hassan Lafi
How can a National Administrative Committee enter Gaza when the international stabilization force meant to precede it has yet to be formed? How can it govern the Strip when the arrangements for building a Palestinian police force capable of maintaining security and public order remain incomplete?
Since the announcement of the political understandings surrounding a ceasefire and the reconstruction of Gaza, public debate has increasingly been reduced to a single issue: the weapons of the Palestinian factions.
It is as if Gaza’s future, its reconstruction, the end of the war, and the administration of its affairs all depend solely on this one question. Yet reducing the entire situation to the issue of weapons obscures a fundamental reality: any discussion of arms remains incomplete as long as the political, administrative, and security frameworks necessary for Gaza’s post-war transition are either absent or obstructed.
Weapons are not surrendered in a vacuum. No actor relinquishes its final source of leverage before knowing who will govern the next phase. From the outset, the natural question has always been: Who will take over Gaza?
If a National Administrative Committee is to govern the Strip, and if an international stabilization force is to oversee the transitional period within the framework of the Peace Council, then discussions regarding security arrangements—including the issue of weapons—can become part of a clearly defined political process.
Demanding that one side surrender all its leverage while no alternative authority is in place, security arrangements remain unfinished, and the future itself is uncertain raises more questions than it answers.
This context helps explain the controversy surrounding the concepts of “neutralizing” or “containing” military infrastructure during the latest round of talks in Cairo. The disagreement was not over the removal or confinement of tunnels or military workshops. That was never the core obstacle in the negotiations.
Rather, the objection centered on attempts to transform a vague and undefined term into a binding political commitment open to multiple interpretations. When terminology remains ambiguous, the stronger party gains the ability to impose its own interpretation and convert it into a permanent instrument of pressure.
The concern, therefore, was not with addressing the remaining military infrastructure itself, but with leaving the concept open-ended and undefined. How can any party commit to an obligation whose limits are unknown? And how can such ambiguity be prevented from becoming a future pretext for obstructing reconstruction, delaying withdrawal, or imposing new conditions whenever Israeli political interests demand it?
A closer look at realities on the ground suggests a less complicated picture than is often portrayed. Gaza has undergone profound transformations as a result of the war. Vast areas have been destroyed, while others remain under direct Israeli control.
Once the administrative committee assumes responsibility for territories from which Israeli forces withdraw, it will exercise legal and administrative authority over those areas. At that point, engineering assessments, field surveys, and efforts to address remaining underground infrastructure will become part of the reconstruction and urban planning process—not preconditions for its commencement.
Yet the core issue lies elsewhere.
The more pressing question concerns the practical foundations required to begin a new phase. How can a National Administrative Committee enter Gaza when the international stabilization force intended to pave the way for its arrival has not yet been established? How can it administer the territory when the Palestinian police force tasked with maintaining security and public order has not yet been formed?
Indeed, how can such a force even be discussed when Israel has yet to allow many of the proposed recruits to leave for training and preparation?
And what of reconstruction itself?
Where is the funding required to launch a meaningful recovery process? Where are the binding international commitments? Where is the executive framework capable of restoring services, institutions, and economic activity?
What about the armed militias that emerged during the war with the backing of the occupation? Who will oversee the transitional period and manage its security, political, and social complexities?
These are not secondary questions. They are the heart of the entire debate.
They concern the day after the war—not merely the day after the guns fall silent. They concern Gaza’s future as a viable political and social entity, not simply temporary security arrangements.
This is why the National Administrative Committee and the International Stabilization Force are so important. They are more than administrative and security mechanisms. Their arrival in Gaza would constitute the most significant political development of the coming phase, marking the practical end of the war and the beginning of a political transition.
Their presence would also serve as the most effective safeguard against Israel’s broader strategy of maintaining Gaza in a permanent state of vacuum—a vacuum of authority, administration, and responsibility—thereby facilitating continued efforts to displace the population, prolong occupation, and exhaust Gaza and its people.
The arrival of the National Committee and the deployment of an international stabilization force would mean that a recognized authority is taking responsibility for the territory. Institutions could begin functioning again. Humanitarian aid could flow more effectively. Reconstruction could start. Public life could gradually return.
In itself, this would represent the first meaningful defeat of plans aimed at displacement and political depopulation.
The establishment of an effective Palestinian authority on the ground would transform Gaza from an open-ended security problem into a political reality upon which recovery, reconstruction, and long-term stability could be built.
Once such a reality is established, the remaining issues—including the question of weapons—can be addressed through legitimate institutions, recognized authority, and a clearly defined political process.
To demand that Palestinians resolve the issue of weapons before this reality exists is to reverse the natural order of events. Stable governance and functioning institutions create the conditions necessary to address security questions—not the other way around.
Yet another question is equally important:
Does Benjamin Netanyahu possess the political capacity to offer a genuine solution for Gaza at this moment?
He operates within an exceptionally sensitive Israeli political environment, where his political survival is closely tied to the cohesion of his governing coalition and the calculations of upcoming elections.
In such circumstances, a genuine settlement for Gaza may represent less of a political opportunity than a political liability. It would require a shift from managing war to building a solution.
The current deadlock may therefore reflect not only disagreements over negotiating details, but also the absence of an Israeli leadership willing to pay the political cost necessary to end the war and open a new path for Gaza.
Nor can the situation be understood without considering the American position.
The political and diplomatic efforts of recent months have largely operated within the framework proposed by US President Donald Trump’s administration, a framework that subsequently received international backing through Security Council Resolution 2803.
If Washington serves as the principal political sponsor of the negotiations, the key question becomes: To what extent is it willing to exert genuine pressure on Israel to ensure the success of the process?
This question becomes even more significant given the administration’s focus on what it views as more pressing regional priorities, particularly the Iranian nuclear file and developments in Lebanon.
Under such circumstances, Washington may be reluctant to enter into a serious political confrontation with Netanyahu over Gaza, especially given its awareness of the fragility of his domestic political position and the complexities of Israel’s internal landscape.
Viewed from this perspective, part of the American alignment with the Israeli position during recent negotiations becomes easier to understand, particularly regarding the issue of weapons.
Rather than pressing for the political and administrative guarantees necessary for the post-war period, the emphasis appeared to rest primarily on Israeli security demands as the prerequisite for any future agreement.
Here lies another fundamental dilemma.
The success of any political process requires more than Palestinian flexibility or an Israeli decision. It also requires an international sponsor willing to use its influence to ensure that agreements are implemented and translated into realities on the ground.
If Washington remains more committed to satisfying Israeli security concerns than to imposing a political solution, the prospects for moving from war to stability will remain limited, regardless of the flexibility demonstrated by Palestinian actors.
The central problem today, therefore, is not the degree of flexibility shown by the factions. It is the absence of guarantees capable of giving that flexibility political meaning.
There is a profound difference between weapons surrendered as part of a framework that ends the war, rebuilds Gaza, establishes stable governance, and restores normal life, and weapons surrendered while questions of administration, security, reconstruction, and funding remain unresolved.
The equation is ultimately straightforward.
If the outcome includes an end to the war, the beginning of reconstruction, the establishment of an effective Palestinian administration, the deployment of an international stabilization force, and the dismantling of the vacuum that enables displacement and fragmentation, then weapons become part of the solution.
But if the primary demand concerns weapons while all other obligations remain hostage to promises and uncertainties, then the issue is no longer about restoring life to Gaza and its people. It becomes merely another way of managing the war.
Reducing Gaza’s future to the issue of weapons is therefore a profound oversimplification of a far more complex crisis.
The central question is no longer what the factions possess or what they may eventually relinquish. The real question is whether a genuine political process exists to move Gaza from war to stability.
Once governance, guarantees, reconstruction, and stability are in place, all other issues will find pathways toward resolution.
Without them, the debate over weapons will remain a futile exercise, while Gaza’s true predicament remains unresolved.
(This article was originally published in Al Mayadeen. It was translated and edited by the Palestine Chronicle)
Mr. Lafi, an excellent analysis!