Over 60 delegations are meeting in Brussels on Thursday to discuss reconstruction, governance and security in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip and reforming the Palestinian Authority.
France and Saudi Arabia are chairing a meeting of the Palestine Donors Group, focusing on reforms of the PA called for by a US peace plan that won approval at the United Nations Security Council on Monday. The PA currently administers semi-autonomous pockets in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and is making a renewed push to become a player in postwar Gaza.
The European Union, the Authority’s largest financial supporter, hopes it can effectively rule Gaza after deep reforms. But the US is demanding the PA reform first, and Israel rejects any role for the PA in Gaza outright. The meeting will not seek financial pledges for Gaza’s reconstruction. An upcoming event in Egypt is being planned to raise that money. While not a central player so far in the negotiations over the territory’s future, the EU is increasingly vocal about securing a role in shaping post-war Gaza.
The bloc is planning to train 3,000 Palestinian policemen to secure the Gaza Strip. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot pledged 100 French policemen for that mission. The US plan calls for the Israeli military to slowly cede territory in Gaza to an advancing mix of these policemen and an International Stabilisation Force. The EU has a small presence of diplomats and military officers in the US-run civilian-military command centre in southern Israel, overseeing the peace plan. It is seeking membership in the yet-to-be-formed Board of Peace, which the UN-backed plan gives ultimate authority in Gaza, while a “technocratic, apolitical committee of competent Palestinians” will run the day-to-day civil service in the coastal enclave.
The EU is pushing for that committee to be largely drawn from the Palestinian Authority Government led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. At 90, Abbas still holds authoritarian power in tiny pockets of the West Bank, but is increasingly marginalised and weakened by Israel, deeply unpopular among Palestinians, and struggling for a say in a postwar Gaza Strip.
A key point of the American peace plan is for a deep reform of the PA. “The money is always conditioned with reforms,” said Dubravka Suica, European Commissioner for the Mediterranean. She said the EU would push the Palestinian Authority to scrap its so-called “ martyrs’ fund “ and overhaul its textbooks, among other reforms.
France’s Barrot said that the Donors Group meeting aims to “reform the Palestinian Authority, to strengthen it in order for the Palestinian Authority to be in charge when the time comes.” The formation of the Board of Peace and the committee have yet to win buy-in from Palestinian society.
If seen as a tool for the US or Israel, prominent Palestinians may be reluctant to join. Hamas denounced the UN resolution on Monday, saying it aims to further Israel’s interests. “Palestinians have to be the ones who are leading and owning the processes that are happening in Palestine,” said Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign police chief.
