Gaza Palestinian technocratic committee says it will pursue ‘peace, democracy, justice’
Panel tasked to run daily affairs says mission is to ‘rebuild Gaza not just in infrastructure but also in spirit,’ embraces peace as path ‘to true Palestinian rights, self determination’
In a mission statement published by its top official, a new committee of Palestinian technocrats that will be tasked with running daily affairs in Gaza said Saturday it is committed to peace, economic development and seeking Palestinian self-determination.
The 12-member National Committee for the Administration of Gaza is headed by former Palestinian Authority deputy planning minister Ali Shaath and will be tasked with running daily affairs on the ground and providing services for Gazans in place of the Hamas terror group.
It held its first meeting in Cairo on Thursday.
Shaath posted on X that he adopted and signed the committee’s mission statement, which says the panel is “dedicated to transforming the transitional period in Gaza into a foundation for lasting Palestinian prosperity.”
The statement said the committee’s “mission is to rebuild the Gaza Strip not just in infrastructure but also in spirit.”
It continued, “We are committed to establishing security, restoring the essential services that form the bedrock of human dignity such as electricity, water, healthcare, and education, as well as cultivating a society rooted in peace, democracy, and justice. Operating with the highest standards of integrity and transparency, the NCAG will forge a productive economy capable of replacing unemployment with opportunity for all.”
“We embrace peace, through which we strive to secure the path to true Palestinian rights and self determination,” it concluded.
Today, as my first official act, I adopted and signed the NCAG Mission Statement, affirming our governing mandate and operating principles:
Authorized by the UN Security Council Resolution 2803 and President Donald J. Trump’s 20-Point Peace Plan, the National Committee for the… pic.twitter.com/WJJZLtW356
— Dr. Ali Shaath (@AliShaathNCAG) January 17, 2026
Shaath, an engineer by trade, has proposed pushing the vast amounts of Gaza rubble into the adjacent Mediterranean Sea to expand the Strip’s territory in order to ameliorate a dire housing crisis for a population that has been overwhelmingly displaced by the war.
The government of Palestinian technocrats will run daily affairs in Gaza and will be supervised by US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace and by two executive boards with similar names — the Gaza Executive Board and the Founding Executive Board.
Read more: Overboard: Making sense of the various Gaza oversight committees created by Trump
Israel publicly clashed with the US over the boards on Saturday, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that the White House’s unveiling of a key international oversight panel for Gaza “was not coordinated with Israel and contradicts its policy.”
Netanyahu appeared to be taking issue with the makeup of the Gaza Executive Board, which will include senior officials from Qatar and Turkey — two countries that have been highly critical of Israel’s prosecution of the war against Hamas in Gaza.
While it will technically operate beneath the Board of Peace — which is headed by Trump and made up of world leaders — the executive board will be more directly involved in overseeing the postwar management of Gaza, playing a critical role as opposed to the more symbolic Board of Peace.
Israel’s rare public break with Trump’s administration was met with a sharp rebuke from a senior US official.
After the statement, an unnamed senior American official was quoted by the Axios outlet as lashing out at Netanyahu.
“This is our show, not his show,” the official reportedly said. “We managed to do things in Gaza in recent months nobody thought was possible, and we are going to continue moving. If he wants us to deal with Gaza, it will have to be our way. We worked over him. Let him focus on Iran and let us deal with Gaza. We are not going to argue with him. He will do his politics and we will keep moving forward with our plan. He can’t really go against us.”
Added the official: “We are doing him a favor. If this fails he can say, ‘I told you so.’ We know that if it succeeds he will claim credit.”
The White House unveiled the makeup of the executive board on Friday, with Turkey to be represented by its Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Qatar to be represented by its senior diplomat Ali Thawadi. They will be joined by Egyptian intelligence chief Hassan Rashad, UAE International Cooperation Minister Reem Al-Hashimy, former UK prime minister Tony Blair, US special envoy Steve Witkoff, top Trump aide Jared Kushner, Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan, Israeli-Cypriot businessman Yakir Gabay, former UN humanitarian coordinator Sigrid Kaag, and former UN envoy to the Mideast Nickolay Mladenov.
Mladenov, who will effectively head the panel, was given the title of high representative for Gaza, and will act as the on-the-ground link between the Board of Peace and the panel of Palestinian technocrats running daily affairs in the Strip.
As for the Board of Peace, the panel of leaders has not yet been unveiled, but invitations to potential members went out on Friday. By Saturday, the leaders of Turkey, Canada and Argentina publicly confirmed receipt — a move that likely indicates their plans to accept the offer.
A source familiar with the matter said Israel did not aggressively push back against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s inclusion on the Board of Peace, recognizing that the more consequential panel is the executive board.
Meanwhile, the parents of police Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, who was killed battling terrorists on October 7, 2023, and whose body was taken to Gaza, said Saturday that the Board of Peace formation was “very problematic,” and that they feel the Trump administration “is rushing to rebuild Gaza without forcing Hamas to uphold its part of the deal” — returning the body of the final hostage.
The Times of Israel Community.