How Israel is engineering the failure of Gaza’s ceasefire
The Al-Nafaq area in Gaza City, scenes of widespread destruction and devastation, 14 October 2025
Muhammad Shehada writes in The New Arab in 10 February 2026:
The establishment of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) had been a long-awaited step for Palestinians hoping to begin rebuilding the war-ravaged enclave. A month later, however, Israel has yet to allow the technocratic committee to enter Gaza, while the US has still not made clear to the NCAG what its exact mandate will be.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff’s announcement of the start of Phase Two of Donald Trump’s Gaza plan in mid-January has been met with Israeli condemnation, procrastination, restrictions, an escalation in bombing, and vows to resume unrestricted military operations and collapse the ceasefire.
This immediately hostile and panicked reaction, despite Trump adding the ICC-indicted Benjamin Netanyahu to the ‘Board of Peace’ and accommodating all Israeli demands, makes clear Israel’s intent to sabotage Phase Two of what’s become a unilateral ceasefire after Israel repeatedly violated Phase One into virtual obsolescence.
A committee without power, offices or staff
The Gaza technocratic committee, composed of 15 Palestinian experts, retired officials, civil society leaders and businessmen, is supposed to take over governance from Hamas and start the reconstruction of Gaza.
However, two people close to the head of the NCAG, Dr Ali Shaath, told The New Arab that committee members haven’t even been told where they would live or work once they enter Gaza, nor have they been designated any residences, offices or staff. NCAG commissioners also don’t know if they will be given any access to eastern Gaza, the 60% of the enclave that the Israeli army fully controls. One NCAG commissioner told The New Arab, “We have more questions than answers at this stage.”
The committee held a meeting with the Palestinian Red Crescent society, during which NCAG commissioners were asked whether they would be able to pay salaries for the families of health workers killed by Israel, according to a source close to Shaath.
“They had no answer,” the source said, adding that the NCAG’s most substantial meeting on the transition of government has only been with municipalities in Gaza that provide basic services rather than with ministries. Tony Blair, now a member of Trump’s Board of Peace, reportedly told Shaath that the NCAG will will have no role in politics or disarmament.