Media coverage
Al Jazeera Net · 2025-11-01
The article examines the debate over Gaza’s future governance between a temporary consensual Palestinian administration and efforts to impose a foreign transitional administration, outlining scenarios such as an international civil administration, a “Gaza humanitarian belt,” and a divided Gaza. It compares these proposals with the experiences of Kosovo, East Timor, Iraq, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Palestinian Authority, warning that disarmament and reconstruction under external tutelage could reproduce dependency and disorder unless based on Palestinian sovereignty.
The article examines the debate over Gaza’s future governance between a temporary consensual Palestinian administration and efforts to impose a foreign transitional administration, outlining scenarios such as an international civil administration, a “Gaza humanitarian belt,” and a divided Gaza. It…
The debate over the future of governance in the Gaza Strip is at the forefront of international and regional political corridors, amid questions about the international community’s ability to find a transitional formula that overcomes the failures of previous international experiences.
While the Palestinian factions, during their meeting in Cairo, affirmed their agreement to hand over the Gaza Strip to a temporary Palestinian committee from among the Strip’s residents, composed of independent “technocrats,” international actors are seeking to impose a transitional foreign administration on the Strip, according to one of the following proposed scenarios:
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An international civil administration: a proposal that took shape in the corridors of the United Nations and the White House, calling for the dispatch of a foreign civil administration to run the affairs of the Strip, such as the proposal for the “Gaza International Transitional Administration” (GITA), for a transitional civil administration under direct international supervision headed by Tony Blair.
The Gaza humanitarian belt: a concept reported by BBC Arabic from Reuters, involving service centers and bases for international forces to stabilize the situation and disarm the area.
Two Gazas: as conveyed by Israeli expert Michael Milshtein regarding a project that divides the Strip into a prosperous part under international supervision and another devastated part under the rule of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), in a desperate attempt to weaken the movement through “social engineering.”
At the Palestinian level, the head of Hamas in Gaza, Khalil al-Hayya, told Al Jazeera on October 26 last year that the movement would hand over the reins of administration—including security—to a consensual national committee, while preserving the unity of national decision-making.
Al-Hayya also affirmed that “the movement has no reservation about any national figure residing in Gaza to administer the Strip, and it will hand over all the reins of administration, including security.”
There is a need to analyze and compare the proposed scenarios in light of previous experiences with international administrations, such as Kosovo, East Timor, Iraq, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, alongside the model of the Palestinian Authority, in order to assess how applicable they are in Gaza after the end of the war.
## Kosovo.. the nascent state under international tutelage
Following Kosovo’s war of independence from Serbia in 1999, the United Nations, through the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), took over administration of the territory. Then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan described the experience as “a model for peacebuilding from scratch.”
But the experience showed that imposing peace from the outside made the state hostage to donor agencies, and Kosovo was unable to build an army or truly independent institutions.
This is what the Serbs wanted. Although former Serbian President Boris Tadić pledged not to resort to force to prevent this independence, he said: “Kosovo cannot be considered a sovereign state, and we refuse to recognize its independence.”
Kosovo remains in an open conflict, and Serbia still officially considers Kosovo part of its territory.
## East Timor between independence and dependency
In 1999, East Timor came under United Nations administration after separating from Indonesia, and officially became an independent state.
But influential figures in East Timor established non-institutional economic and administrative relations with international actors, so political instability and the absence of reforms came to dominate the country.
Former revolutionary leader José Ramos-Horta, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, described his country’s experience as one that “left behind an elite tied to donors and cut society off from its roots.”
## Iraq.. distorting the state through transitional administration
After the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority, under the leadership of the US administration, assumed responsibility for administering the country’s affairs.
Under the supervision of the US Department of Defense, the Coalition Provisional Authority was formed as the civil agency tasked with reconstructing Iraq after the war, headed by Paul Bremer, who was the architect of sectarian quota-sharing and the one who laid the foundations for corruption, spread chaos, and shattered state institutions.
On May 23, 2003, the Authority issued Order No. 2, “Dissolution of Entities,” which dissolved the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, the army, the air force, the navy, and other security and military institutions.
This decision left hundreds of thousands of soldiers and government employees without work or salary, creating an economic, social, and security gap, and contributing to the escalation of armed attacks against occupation forces.
A 2006 Human Rights Watch report also noted that dismantling the security institutions left thousands of Iraqis without income, exacerbating the state of chaos.
Official documents and international reports make clear that these policies were not merely administrative mistakes, but deliberate steps by the US administration to directly weaken the Iraqi state.
The Iraqi experience after 2003 clearly shows that the US administration bears direct responsibility for dismantling state institutions, and it serves as a warning against any foreign intervention that practices the systematic dismantling of state institutions without building a coherent alternative.
## The Palestinian Authority between the jaws of occupation and tutelage
Since the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority model has combined self-rule with intensive foreign oversight, as US General Keith Dayton supervised the training of the security services. The Palestinian people found themselves facing a US security plan in which security was traded for the economy.
After 30 years, Palestinians found that the agreements burden the Authority with impossible demands, while stripping it of funding, representation, resources, and freedom of movement. This is also due to internal reasons related to the Authority, which did not answer questions about itself and did not pose the correct interim and strategic questions, especially at this stage, and because of its distancing itself from its citizens.
Data from the Palestinian Research Center in 2023 indicate that “87% of West Bank residents are dissatisfied with the Authority’s performance and consider it an extension of a security administration that serves the occupation.”
## Disarmament.. lessons from international experiences
Experiences show that disarmament after conflict is a sovereign issue, not merely a technical one. Previous experiences also show the dangers of agreeing to disarmament, as weapons became part of the control of foreign powers, and this had a clear impact on national decisions and cultural identity.
In Kosovo, foreign control over security after the disarmament of the resistance led to the marginalization of local authorities. International forces remained there in a weak capacity, still seeking to train the police and combat corruption.
In Iraq, dismantling the army led to a rapid security vacuum that contributed to the rise of militias and local conflicts.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the partial dismantling of weapons without strong oversight institutions led to renewed tensions.
In East Timor, converting the resistance’s weapons into the national army was a condition for peace.
Previous international experiences may conclude that any effort to disarm before the establishment of a sovereign state and firmly established security institutions may reproduce scenarios of chaos and division.
Calls to disarm the resistance in Gaza have continued from all sides, and the Palestinian Authority adopted them through its president, Mahmoud Abbas, in his speech at the United Nations on September 25, 2025, when he called on Hamas and the other factions to hand over their weapons to the Authority, stressing the necessity of “one state with one law and one legitimate security force.”
By contrast, Khalil al-Hayya affirmed that “the weapon we carry, we and all the Palestinian factions, is linked to the existence of the occupation and aggression. If this occupation ends and a Palestinian state is established for us, then this weapon and those who carry it will be transformed into the state.”
The resistance believes that the weapon remains linked to defending the land and confronting the occupation, and that it should serve as an internal security instrument to protect civilians and ensure stability, while warning of the danger of uncontrolled weapons that could be exploited for internal violence or against civilians.
As for international and UN forces, the Palestinian factions—according to al-Hayya in the televised interview on Al Jazeera—confirmed their acceptance of UN forces as separation forces, border-monitoring forces, and forces to oversee the ceasefire, stressing that the UN resolution would determine the nature of these forces, their duration, and their operating mechanisms. He indicated that this understanding had also been reached with the Fatah movement.
The previous models constitute a major warning for the transitional experience in Gaza, so that it does not repeat the experiences of foreign administrations, as the harms and disasters of dependency grow in direct proportion to any expansion of the donors’ role in determining the Strip’s budget or supervising reconstruction projects.
A 2024 report by the Office of the Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction indicated that external funds are often a tool of political control and economic pressure, and that foreign administration may turn the reconstruction process into an instrument of political and economic control, rather than a lever for development and local sovereignty.
For example, the Office of the Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction in 2006 and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 2018 documented that Iraq spent as much as $60 billion under reconstruction programs, while deep effects on state institutions remained and corruption rates rose, while Kosovo still depends on external support.
In this context, the economic expert Omar Shaban warned, after the 2014 war, that reconstruction mechanisms led by the United Nations and donor countries reproduced the blockade and opened the door to corruption.
Today, local and international experts confirm that any conditional external administration of Gaza’s reconstruction, unless it is built on the sovereignty of Palestinian decision-making and the independence of the reconstruction fund, may reproduce the same instruments of control seen in previous experiences.
## Reconstruction, Sovereignty, and the Game of Nations
The national administration in Gaza faces enormous challenges related to the files of reconstruction, internal displacement, and social stability, amid unprecedented damage affecting infrastructure and the economy.
According to the joint report issued by the United Nations, the World Bank, and the European Union, reconstruction needs in Gaza and the West Bank are estimated at about $53.2 billion over 10 years, including about $20 billion urgently required during the first three years.
Material damage is also estimated at about $30 billion, and economic losses at approximately $19 billion, according to the report published on the websites of the United Nations and the European Union.
On the humanitarian front, UNRWA continues to record waves of internal displacement involving hundreds of thousands, alongside difficulties in aid delivery and in providing food and medical treatment, highlighting the scale of the immediate humanitarian challenge facing local institutions.
UN reports warn that delays in reconstruction will lead to further deterioration in the agriculture, water, education, and health facility sectors, exacerbating the risks of internal displacement and threatening social and political stability in the long term.
## Palestinian Sovereignty Is an Essential Condition
The experiences of Kosovo, East Timor, Iraq, and the foreign administrations there, as well as the experience of Gaza, show that they often took the form of an updated colonial formula and trusteeship under humanitarian cover from abroad, and were a tool for entrenching the influence of the victorious Western powers.
In Gaza’s case today, it is necessary to recall the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace report of December 3, 2018, which indicated that entities not internationally recognized face the dangers of “creeping recognition,” in addition to internal challenges related to weak legal and administrative structures and dependence on external aid, which limits the ability of any foreign administration to exercise its powers fully.
It is also important to recall the World Bank, United Nations, and European Union report of February 2025, which stated that “achieving sustainable stability in Gaza requires solutions that take Palestinian sovereignty into account and a balance between international support and national decision-making, in order to avoid repeating previous experiences in other areas.”
Text © Al Jazeera Net — archived here with attribution to the source. — Machine translation for archival reference. — Original source