Hamas and Fatah officials discuss post-war Gaza in Cairo meeting

Forming a Societal Support Committee, made up of 15 independent Palestinian figures, was on the agenda

People search the rubble for missing persons at the site of an Israeli strike in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza. AFP

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Senior officials from rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas are meeting in Cairo to discuss with their Egyptian hosts the possibility of forming a committee to manage the day-to-day affairs of postwar Gaza, talks that are part of Egypt's broader mediation efforts to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

The Societal Support committee, as the group has been named, will be made up of 15 independent Palestinian figures not aligned to any particular Palestinian movement, sources told The National on Sunday. While Fatah and Hamas officials met in Cairo last month to discuss forming the committee, which is based on a proposal by Egypt, the talks were adjourned.

The committee's mandate will not be political and it will be in charge, among other things, of distributing humanitarian assistance and health care in the war-battered Palestinian enclave. It will work alongside a proposed group of technocrats that will run postwar Gaza until elections are held, the sources said.

Talks resumed on Sunday, with separate meetings between Egyptian officials and Fatah and Hamas delegates, the sources said. A meeting with all three parties is also scheduled. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, meanwhile, was due to arrive in Cairo on Sunday for talks with Egyptian officials that will touch on the proposed committee, the sources said.

Israel has repeatedly said the war in Gaza will not stop until Hamas's military and governing capabilities are dismantled and that it will not accept any role for the group in postwar Gaza. US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators have failed to secure a truce that would end the war and secure the release of Israeli and foreign hostages held by Hamas, along with thousands of Palestinians detained by Israel.

More than 43,300 Palestinians have been killed across Gaza since the war began last October, with at least another 102,000 wounded and several thousands missing across the devastated enclave. Most of the territory's 2.3 million residents have been displaced, often multiple times.

Last month, Egypt met with Israeli officials to voice “strong opposition” over Israel's plan for postwar Gaza, including the creation of a northern “buffer zone” that could displace hundreds of thousands of people.

The Israeli plan would split the northern part of the coastal enclave into five “security zones” in which no rebuilding would be allowed, sources told The National at the time.

Only displaced women and men over the age of 60 would be allowed to return to their homes in northern Gaza, where local militiamen known to be opposed to Hamas would take charge of distributing humanitarian assistance. Israel has repeatedly said it will not let Hamas rule in a postwar Gaza.

Hamas, for its part, has remained committed to its core demands for a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a permanent ceasefire and the unconditional return of Palestinians displaced by the war.

The latest meetings in Cairo follow another round of talks to bring the war, now more than a year old, to even a temporary end. Discussions ended last week in Doha with no sign of a breakthrough.

Meanwhile, several people were reported killed in overnight Israeli air strikes across the enclave, with intense attacks reported across Gaza city into Sunday morning. It came a day after six people, including four children, were wounded in an Israeli strike on a polio vaccination centre in Gaza city.

Israelis continued protests on Saturday calling for the return of more than 100 people who still remain hostage in Gaza, taken captive during the Hamas October 7 attack that sparked the war. Crowds continued rallies in Tel Aviv, where weekly demonstrations have been held since the war began.

Of the estimated 100-plus hostages, about 40 are believed to have died in captivity, according to the Israeli military.