Trump’s National Committee for the Administration of Gaza is a part of a broader strategy of genocide management, writes Yara Hawari.
U.S. President Donald Trump during a charter signing ceremony for the Board of Peace at the World Economic Forum on Jan. 22. (World Economic Forum/Flickr/Benedikt von Loebell/CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
By Yara Hawari
Al-Shabaka
The announcement of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), a 15-member technocratic body chaired by Ali Shaath, signals a shift toward depoliticized governance in Gaza amid ongoing genocide.
Shaath, a Palestinian civil engineer and former deputy minister of planning and international cooperation, is positioned to lead an interim governing structure tasked with managing reconstruction and service provision under external oversight.
While presented as a neutral technocratic governing structure, the NCAG is more likely to function as a managerial apparatus that stabilizes conditions that enable genocide rather than challenging them.
Technocratic governance in Gaza — particularly under U.S. oversight, given its role as a co-perpetrator in the genocide — should be understood not as a pathway to recovery or sovereignty, but as part of a broader strategy of genocide management.
The NCAG was established under the oversight of U.S. President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace (BoP) as part of the second phase of the ceasefire deal, which the Israeli regime has repeatedly violated. [The Board of Peace is holding its first meeting in Washington this week.]
The BoP’s composition and mandate remain unclear, despite its endorsement by U.N. Security Council Resolution 2803 as the primary body overseeing reconstruction and interim administration in Gaza.
Yet, according to its draft charter circulated to prospective member states, Trump, as BoP chairman, is granted sweeping authority to shape membership, control subsidiary bodies, and exercise decisive influence over strategic policy and implementation.
[See: Hedges Report: Trump’s Gaza ‘Peace’ Plan]
The draft of Resolution 2803 (2025) to “establish an international force to restore order in Gaza, protect civilians and open the way for large-scale aid and rebuilding” handed out ahead of the vote during the Security Council meeting on Nov. 17, 2025. (UN Photo/Manuel Elías)
Most glaring in Trump’s plan for Gaza is the absence of any discussion of Palestinian sovereignty.
Indeed, Palestinians have been excluded from any meaningful decision-making, effectively stripping Gaza’s population of political agency and once again subordinating them to external colonial control.
The composition of the NCAG illustrates how technocratic administration is being made to operate in practice. The committee convened for the first time on Jan.15 in Cairo.
Its 15 Palestinian members are all originally from Gaza, and most are affiliated with or close to the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank. Their expertise spans infrastructure, finance, telecommunications and waste management.
Notably, there is only one woman on the committee, Hana al-Tarazi, tasked with the social affairs portfolio.
The committee’s chair, Shaath, is an engineer from Khan Younis who has held various positions within the PA and played a prominent role in the development of Palestinian industrial zones.
In his first interview following his appointment, given to a radio station owned by Palestinian businessman Bashar al Masri, Shaath repeatedly emphasized that the NCAG will play no political role in governing Gaza.
He deferred questions on ceasefire arrangements and territorial demarcations — including the expansion of the “yellow line,” which Israeli authorities treat as Gaza’s new de facto boundary — to Trump’s BoP.
He was also deliberately vague about the committee’s funding, citing Arab states as potential sources, and was notably evasive when asked about the salaries of committee members.
In the same interview, Shaath spoke of the need for Palestinians to unite under “one system, one law, and one president.” Later, at the Davos signing of the BoP, Shaath amended this formulation to “one law, one authority, one weapon” — language that appeared verbatim in Jared Kushner’s presentation explaining Hamas’ demilitarization and the NCAG’s role in authorizing all weapons in Gaza.
This language clearly signals the PA’s return to governing Gaza and the expansion of President Mahmoud Abbas’ authoritarian rule.
The appointment of Sami Nasman to the internal security portfolio, reportedly at the insistence of Mohammed Dahlan’s faction within Fatah, further underscores the NCAG’s political alignment.
A former PA intelligence official and longstanding opponent of Hamas, Nasman has been accused in media reports of collaborating with Israeli forces during the genocide.
Refusing Colonial Control
Children in Gaza rummaging through ruins and trash posing catastrophic environmental and health risks, July 2024. (Ashraf Amra /UNRWA/Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 3.0)
Gaza is in urgent need of immediate relief, recovery and reconstruction, some of which the NCAG might facilitate. Yet it is also in need of a political solution that ends the genocide, siege, and occupation. Without a political solution, the NCAG will serve as a mechanism of genocide management and a political instrument that entrenches the very conditions that made it possible.
Indeed, the formation of the NCAG is part of a deliberate approach by the U.S. to depoliticize the Palestinian struggle.
It creates the appearance of Palestinian participation while operating under Trump’s BoP, effectively eroding Palestinian political agency.
In practice, the NCAG is positioned to play a role similar to that of the PA in the West Bank: a service provider operating under colonial oversight.
This arrangement effectively defers political resolution indefinitely. Worse yet, by advancing technocratic governance in place of justice, self-determination, and accountability, this arrangement sustains the structural conditions that enable genocide.
Ultimately, treating Gaza’s governance and reconstruction as mere technical challenges requiring technocratic expertise masks the ongoing genocide and facilitates the evasion of accountability for it.
Palestinian civil society, grassroots movements, political organizations and international solidarity actors should reject depoliticized frameworks that operate without an immediate and permanent ceasefire.
They must also press for enforceable guarantees against renewed military assault and for accountability for the genocide.
They should insist that both reconstruction and governance arrangements are grounded in Palestinian political agency and collective decision-making rather than technocratic neutrality imposed under external colonial control. One such example is the Gaza Phoenix Framework, a reconstruction plan developed by Palestinian experts in Gaza and the West Bank.
Moreover, security arrangements that prioritize internal policing among Palestinians over civilian protection and collective recovery and healing should be closely scrutinized and challenged.
Finally, international engagement with Gaza must reject “stabilization” paradigms and insist on the dismantlement of the structures that enable genocide, siege, and occupation.
Yara Hawari is Al-Shabaka’s co-director. She previously served as the Palestine policy fellow and senior analyst. Yara completed her PhD in Middle East Politics at the University of Exeter, where she taught various undergraduate courses and continues to be an honorary research fellow. In addition to her academic work, which focused on indigenous studies and oral history, she is a frequent political commentator writing for various media outlets including The Guardian, Foreign Policy and Al Jazeera English.
This article is from Al-Shabaka.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
This is still a form of European colonialism. This system has caused genocides all over the world and drawn boundaries arbitrarily without the consent of the native population. In whose twisted world view is the continuation of this system legitimate? It needs to be abolished and self-determination of all peoples be the guiding principle we live by. Those responsible for the genocide of the Palestinian people absolutely must be brought to justice. No matter what it takes.
They want to return to old fashioned colonialism; profits before people.
There was no need for the security [¿for whom?] council to pass this resolution, except that usa has a bigger hammer over the reps. from other unsc countries — and even CH & RU which abstained.
Palestine is an indépendant country.
DISGUSTING!!!!!
And, the photo of the two boys rummaging through ruins : heartbreaking
Fully agree with Yara Hawari that we need a political solution that ends the genocide and gives clean water, healthy food, medicine, and shelter to the Palestinian people. Also, that we cannot let Trump’s Gaza Committee be part of genocidal management.
Israel, as an illegal occupier, has illegally made war on the Palestinian people, and has now handed over the development of Gaza to another illegal occupier, Donald Trump.
On his committee, Trump will manage the genocide of the Palestinian people by alienation from their land with private development and planning. This will leave Netanyahu to carry on the genocide of the Palestinian people.
Basically, all those countries on the UN Security Council have given Trump the illegal right to sell-off land and develop the Gaza Strip under the pretense of bringing peace to Gaza. How long are we going to tolerate cocky Don Trumpione laughing at us, while he whispers in Netanyahu’s ear – ‘get on with the genocide mate’.
It also raises the question of how all other members of the UN security council were able to vote on such an illegal motion. Shame on them all!
Also, why has there been no opposition from the UN General Assembly based on legal grounds. This would have at least given the public a focus to rally around.
Remember! for month after month, we were paralysed watching the most horrific scenes of the starving Palestinian people queuing for food and being shot down in cold blood. This was Trump with his gang of handpicked US mercenary thugs helping Israel to carry out its genocide, without any interference from anyone. This was Trumps ‘humanitarian aid’. This was Trump’s ‘genocide’. One never forgets scenes like this.
I believe it is essential that we fight harder than ever before to stop this committee existing.
Long live Palestine!
Where might I earn a degree in the fast-growing field of Genocide Management?
It is so depressing to think that there is Palestinian leadership that will operate from a colonial platform in order to squelch accountability and self determination. These are signs of a bleak future for humanity, and ultimately a catastrophic failure.
“This arrangement effectively defers political resolution indefinitely…”
The author should be more detail what does she mean under the “political resolution”…..
Without economic recovery, political stability is unlikely.