Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza could undermine the prospect of creating a unified Palestinian state, a senior United Nations official warned late Thursday.
In comments that came on the heels of an EU-led donor meeting on the future of the Palestinian Authority, Karim Amer, director of partnerships at the Department of External Relations of the UN Relief and Works Agency of Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), told The Parliament that the international community should not support any peace plan between the Israelis and Palestinians that does not pave the way for a future Palestine comprised of both the West Bank and Gaza.
“Discussions over the next steps in the future are being taken without the Palestinian Authority or the Palestinians. That can’t be,” the official said. “Whatever future arrangements are going to be put in place will have to have Palestinians at the centre, and whatever governance will come out will have to be led by Palestinians.”
Amer added: “We should make sure that whatever we’re putting in place right now as the international community doesn’t do anything to undermine the longer-term prospects for a successful Palestinian state.”
The Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, oversees parts of the Israeli occupied West Bank but has not ruled Gaza since the militant group Hamas took over the Palestinian territory in 2007.
Thursday’s Palestine Donor Group meeting — chaired by the EU’s Commissioner for the Mediterranean, Dubravka Šuica, alongside Abbas — was meant to shore up international support for the beleaguered PA, which has been sidelined from US-led efforts to broker peace in Gaza.
The gathering came days after the United Nations Security Council adopted a US-drafted resolution backing President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan. It includes the creation of a Board of Peace in Gaza — which the president is expected to chair — and the establishment of an International Stabilisation Force tasked with de-arming Hamas.
The plan is the next stage in a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that came into effect last month, following two years of war triggered by the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel that left approximately 1,200 people dead. Israel’s subsequent military campaign in Gaza has resulted in the deaths of more than 69,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.
In the interview, Amer noted that one of the major risks that has emerged following the the Security Council resolution is that the Trump-led framework for rebuilding Gaza appears “divorced” from the PA and the West Bank. “They need to bring these two back together,” he said of the US and its partners.
Furthermore, the official pointed out that the US resolution lacks crucial details on governance, service delivery and humanitarian assistance.
“All these questions are left unanswered,” Amer said, noting that it's “precisely because things are so unclear and so vague that you need states to come together.”
The Palestine Donor Group was intended to not only bolster support for the Palestinian Authority, but also affirm the EU’s role in the Gaza peace process after being excluded from US-led ceasefire negotiations. Yet the very absence of the United States from Thursday’s summit has led critics to dismiss the gathering as largely symbolic.
A European Commission spokesperson told The Parliament that Washington had been invited, but that it did not respond to the invitation.
Still, Amer praised the EU for hosting an event that placed the PA back at the “centre of the conversation,” calling it “the only entity that can help keep things in check at the moment.” He also argued that the current ceasefire won’t hold with a weakened PA unable to provide essential services to the population, such as schooling and healthcare.
Quizzed about the bloc’s bid to gain greater political influence in the process, Amer called it “essential,” citing the risks of unipolar world where a single country calls the shots.
In a separate interview earlier this week, Šuica told The Parliament that the EU "should have a role in the Board of Peace," while calling on the international community to help the bloc support the PA. "We would like the Palestinian Authority to be capable of taking over some services from UNRWA,” she said.
Palestinian Authority ‘on the verge of collapse’
The EU-led gathering in Brussels also highlighted another pressing point: how to finance the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority.
Amer noted that the PA is “on the verge of financial collapse.” That’s largely because Israel has been withholding tax revenue owed to the PA since the 7 October attacks. He contended that the implications of that decision, notably growing instability in the region, should prompt the US to heap pressure on Israel to release the funds.
“The US has a very strong interest in seeing the ceasefire last and broader peace in the region.” Yet, Amer said, “that doesn’t work if Palestine remains unstable [and] if there’s a socio-economic collapse of the Palestinian society.”
He added: “There needs to be collective pressure put on Israel to release these duties…if states have levers they can use to pressure Israel, they should."
The US has so far refrained from calling on Israel to release the tax revenues.
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