Hamas fighters releasing Israeli hostage Yarden Bibas on a stage in Khan Younis before handing him over to the Red Cross on Feb. 1, 2025. (Credit: Eyad Baba/AFP)
Middle East Eye revealed on Friday that a Palestinian Authority representative informed U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, during a Tuesday meeting in Riyadh that the party was ready to "clash" with Hamas if that was what would be required in order to take control of the Gaza Strip.
Citing a Palestinian official privy to the meeting's events, the London-based, regionally focused news outlet reports that the Palestinian Authority (PA) had requested Saudi Arabia facilitate a rendezvous following Witkoff's rejection of an invitation to meet in Ramallah. In Riyadh, the PA was represented by senior official Hussein al-Sheikh, a possible successor to the 89-year-old President Mahmoud Abbas, now serving his 19th year in office.
In addition to presenting itself as prepared to use military aggression in Gaza, the party, largely viewed as a corrupt Israeli collaborator by many Palestinians, also presented a plan for ruling Gaza via a committee, whose members would be majority from outside of the besieged enclave. According to Middle East Eye's (MEE) source, Saudi Arabia did not review the PA's plan beforehand.
Following this Tuesday meeting, Witkoff then traveled to Israel and, on Wednesday, became the first U.S. official to visit Gaza in 15 years. Witkoff is also known for having played a vital role, on behalf of Trump, in finally pressuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a cease-fire agreement with Hamas, after over a year of fruitless negotiations.
Netanyahu and Trump are set to meet in Washington on Tuesday of the coming week.
A senior U.S. defense official to MEE that the PA's boast of being militarily prepared to fight Hamas sounded “delusional,” adding the group, which is dominated by secular Palestinian party Fatah, would need military support and troops from other Arab states or private contractors.
The PA plan for Gaza
On behalf of the PA, Sheikh presented Witkoff with a plan in which Gaza would be ruled by a committee, with the majority of its members outside of Gaza. The committee would be led by Ziad Abu Amr, deputy prime minister in the occupied West Bank from 2013 to 2024, longtime adviser to Abbas and a dual U.S. citizen with a PhD from Georgetown University.
Abu Amr, currently based in Ramallah, was born in Gaza in 1950, served as foreign minister in Hamas' 2007 government and mediated talks between Fatah and Hamas in the past, but has recently be active in trying to reassert PA's authority in Gaza, lobbying against funding reconstruction there after the 2014 war, saying the PA would need to be established in the enclave first. The PA's plan would make Abu Amr Gaza's defacto leader.
Efforts to reconcile Fatah and Hamas have so far failed. The two parties broke away from each other in 2007, following 2006 elections in Gaza in which Hamas gained a significant majority. Fighting between Fatah and Hamas resulted in the latter consolidating power in Gaza and the former consolidating power in the occupied West Bank.
In the last weeks of 2024, the PA launched a violent crack down on various Palestinian militants in the West Bank, culminating in a joint Israeli-PA siege of Jenin hospitals and refugee camps, killing almost 30 people, wounding hundreds, and displacing more than 20,000.
Meanwhile in Gaza, Hamas has resurfaced, moving freely throughout the Strip and orchestrating high-profile hostage exchanges with Israel, demonstrating their widespread public support and functioning military organization in the face of Israel's failure to accomplish its stated military goal: eliminating Hamas. Israel killed at least 48,000 Palestinians since October 2023.
In a previous report, Tahani Mustafa, the International Crisis Group's senior Palestine analyst, told MEE: “The PA is worried that if there is a new administration in Gaza and it’s not them, all their funding will be channeled away. Their ultimate fear is that the center of political gravity will shift from the West Bank to Gaza and leave them high and dry.”
The PA vs. Trump and his allies
While former U.S. President Joe Biden had the PA at the heart of his post-war plans for Gaza, it will have a much harder time finding favor with the new American administration.
During his first term, Trump and his son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, both displayed and acted upon disdain for the PA. Trump shut down the U.S. embassy to Palestinians in the West Bank and also shut down the Washington office of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, led by the PA. Kushner's campaign against the PA resulted in Trump cutting all funding to it.
Among Gulf States, the United Arab Emirates is the PA's harshest critics and at one point said it would be willing to send peacekeepers to Gaza — only if Abbas was replaced.
Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, has been taking a more neutral position with regard to the various Palestinian factions and could play a significant role in the reconstruction of Gaza. It certainly has the funds to do so. Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman publicly accused Israel of genocide in Gaza and prior to Oct. 7, 2023, hosted late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, whereas the UAE hosted Israel's foreign minister.