World News | Palestinian Authority Forms Committee to Manage Recovery in Gaza
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. The Palestinian Authority on Tuesday said it has formed a committee to manage reconstruction and recovery efforts in the Gaza Strip.
Ramallah (West Bank), Feb 4 (AP) The Palestinian Authority on Tuesday said it has formed a committee to manage reconstruction and recovery efforts in the Gaza Strip.
It was unclear if the committee would be able to operate inside Gaza. Hamas, though weakened, still controls most of the territory, and Israel has ruled out any role for the Western-backed Palestinian Authority in postwar Gaza.
During a weekly Cabinet meeting, the office of Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa said in a statement officials set up a working group “to manage the affairs of the Gaza Strip”. The committee would work to provide basic services like water, electricity, health and education, specifically in the southern Gaza Strip, with the help of “various partners,” it said, without elaborating.
A Palestinian official, who was not authorised to brief media and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the working group would be made up of technocrats, including independent figures from Gaza.
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Hamas, which won parliamentary elections in 2006, drove the Palestinian Authority's forces from Gaza the following year in a week of street battles.
The Biden administration had called for a reformed Palestinian Authority to govern postwar Gaza with Arab support ahead of eventual statehood. But the Israeli government, which is opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state, rejected those proposals.
It's unclear where the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, fits into Trump's plans for the region.
Many Israelis and Palestinians alike view the authority as corrupt and incompetent, but it is widely seen as the only political alternative to Hamas. Palestinian Authority representatives are currently staffing Gaza's Rafah crossing with Egypt, alongside European Union observers. (AP)
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)