From the Liveblog of
Monday, August 18, 2025
PA prime minister says committee being formed to manage Gaza once again
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleNurit Yohanan is The Times of Israel's Palestinian and Arab world correspondent
Visiting the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing alongside Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa says the PA is laying the groundwork for it to eventually retake control of the Gaza Strip.
“We will soon announce the establishment of a temporary committee to manage the affairs of the Strip under the auspices of the Palestinian government,” he says.
Mustafa says the body will not be new but rather a reactivation of institutions of the “State of Palestine and its government in Gaza,” which he stresses is “an inseparable part of the State of Palestine.”
The PA was in charge of running Gaza’s affairs until 2007, when it was ousted by Hamas in a bloody coup. Israel has said it will not agree to handing over control to the PA, but has yet to formulate an alternative acceptable to the international community.
Mustafa says Israel’s offensive does not grant legitimacy to any local or international body to impose “arrangements” on the Gaza Strip, hinting at US pressure on Egypt to accept Gazans into Egyptian territory.
The Times of Israel Community.