UAE Exploits Gaza Famine to Gain Influence in Coordination with Israel
The UAE’s ruling regime devised a malevolent plan, capitalizing on the famine in Gaza induced by Israel’s continuous war since October 7, aiming to bolster their influence in coordination with Tel Aviv.
The American Wall Street Journal revealed a secret Israeli plan to put anti-Hamas elements in charge of distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza, with the help of the UAE and Egypt.
Israeli and Arab officials said, according to the newspaper, that Israeli security officials are quietly developing a plan to distribute aid in the Gaza Strip that could ultimately lead to the establishment of a Palestinian-led governing authority there.
A senior Israeli official has held talks with Egypt, the UAE and Jordan to build regional support for an emerging effort to recruit Palestinian leaders and businessmen with no ties to Hamas in aid distribution, the officials said.
The officials said that the aid will enter by land and sea after Israeli inspection and will go to large warehouses in central Gaza, where the Palestinians will then distribute it.
The officials said that when the war ended, those responsible for aid would take over governance, with the support of security forces funded by wealthy Arab governments.
This effort represents some of the first steps that Israel has begun to take to fill the power vacuum left by its invasion of the Gaza Strip.
The United States and Arab governments pressured Israel to do more to deliver humanitarian aid to Gazans and to set a clear vision for managing Gaza after the war.
The relief effort has already faced obstacles and may collapse, and it does not yet have the support of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Gaza will be run by those who do not seek to kill Israelis,” said a senior Israeli official from the Prime Minister’s Office, and another Israeli official said that Hamas’s strong opposition could make the plan unworkable.
But the chaos across Gaza has frustrated the Biden administration, the Israeli defense establishment, and critics within Netanyahu’s emergency government.
They say that the organized distribution of aid is currently impossible and that Hamas can reassert itself in light of the governance vacuum.
They also say that a force is now needed that can effectively distribute aid in Gaza, and realistically this force would be linked to the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank-based government, or to Fateh, the ruling party in power.
Major General Ghassan Alyan, head of the Israeli security arm supervising civil affairs in the occupied territories, believes that aid efforts are an important part of Israel’s plan to evacuate the city of Rafah, before the attack on this border city.
The officials said that the aid distribution network would feed between 750,000 and one million people in the displacement camps that Israel planned to accommodate Rafah residents, which swelled as Gazans took refuge there.
One official said that Alyan’s vision is for anti-Hamas Palestinians to form a “local administrative authority” to distribute aid, excluding the movement from the process.
A Hamas official said the movement already felt it had been marginalized by the sea bridge supported by the United States, the UAE, and other partners to provide aid to Gaza.
The spokesperson indicated that discussions regarding the humanitarian corridor bypassed consultations with the movement, raising concerns about the potential role of Muhammad Dahlan. Dahlan, a former high-ranking member of Fateh who previously served as the head of security in Gaza for the Palestinian Authority before seeking exile in the Emirates, is suspected to have been involved.
Hamas wants non-political forces to take over security, but they will work with the movement’s approval.
But the Hamas official said that any permanent security arrangement must be supervised by a future Palestinian national unity government supported by all factions and not foreign entities, and added that “security will be the responsibility of the national reconciliation government.”
The Gulf countries have stated that they won’t fund security forces or participate in the reconstruction of Gaza, as outlined in the developing aid proposal unless Israel agrees to the establishment of a Palestinian state—a proposition Prime Minister Netanyahu has dismissed.
